Ludwig Willisch Takes Over BMW's European Sales Region

The former president of BMW's sports division, M, has been put in charge of the company's European sales region. This will make him responsible of all BMW and MINI sales in all European countries except Germany. Willisch will thus be in charge of an area which brought the group 39 percent of its total retail volume.

“In Ludwig Willisch we have an outstanding manager with a great wealth and depth of experience for this important position. He is the right person to lead our biggest sales region successfully, even through difficult times,” Ian Robertson, Board Member for Sales and Marketing said in a release.

Willisch will be replaced at M by Kay Segler, former head of BMW's 100 markets served via local importers. He was also brand manager with MINI for four years, as well as head of the Singapore regional office. The man replaced by Willisch, Marco Saltalamacchia, "will prepare for a new area of responsibility," as BMW says.

Willisch has a long carrer with BMW. He started working for the company in 1996, as head of the Düsseldorf branch. He later became head of the sales subsidiaries in Germany, Japan and Sweden. While heading the M division, sales of the factory tuned vehicles increased by 50 percent in 2008, reaching a level of more than 24,000 units.

As for the financial performances of BMW in the first quarter of 2009, the group registered a drop in sales of 21.2 percent, to 277,264 units, translated into an operating loss of 13.4 percent compared to the same period in 2009. This means the group's revenues stood at 11,509 million euro, with an EBIT loss of 55 million euro.