Chief of Russia’s biggest carmaker Avtovaz to step down: company

Russia’s biggest carmaker Avtovaz, majority owned by Renault-Nissan, said on Monday its chief executive Bo Andersson is to step down.

Hit hard by Russia’s economic crisis, the company, which makes Lada cars, has been battling with bankruptcy fears since last month reporting a tripling of net losses for 2015.

Andersson “is planning to resign”, the automaker said in a statement.

The company’s board is to meet on March 15 to pick a successor who “will take the reorganisation into a new operational phase”, it said.

In February, Avtovaz said market conditions “create a material uncertainty that gives rise to significant doubt about the group’s ability to continue as a going concern”.

Net losses in 2015 amounted to 73.8 billion rubles ($928 million, 847 million euros), nearly triple the 2014 figure of 25 billion rubles.

Based on the Volga river in the city of Togliatti, Avtovaz is majority owned since 2013 by Renault-Nissan and employs 44,000 people, not counting jobs it generates in the region for its suppliers.

tq/jh/kjm