Lowly VeeDub Board Member Over Night Millionaire
Who says the little guy can’t profit from Porsche’s mucking-around with the Volkswagen stock? Jochem Heizmann, a lowly member of Volkswagen AG’s BOD and head of Group Production (which doesn’t mean he’s in charge of producing rock groups) just sold a measly 2000 shares of VeeDub stock for a paltry €537.93 a piece, clearing a trifling $1.39m, Europe [sub] says. They unearthed this inconvenient truth after reading the disclosure statements which are now obligatory even in Germany. Previously, Dr. Prof. Heizmann (we are at Volkswagen, after all, which must have more professors than MIT) worked at Audi. He ran VeeDub’s plant in Zwickau, then was responsible for production at Audi again. Just your average engineer. If a guy like him can clear a mil in a few days, anyone can. Or not.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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autonut: "Bogle (Vanguard Funds founder) called them wealth croupiers." [Chuckling.] Bogle is a canny guy. How many other investment experts will admit that no one can consistently predict which way stocks will go?
@autonut Nuclear physicists and mathematicians are good at nuclear physics and math - nothing more. These guys tried to create mathematical models of human behavior. Apart from the math, they were way out of their league. I majored in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in college. I work with and know many "geeks". The last thing geeks should be doing is trying to model human behavior - most of those guys are barely human themselves. -ted
Heizmann has not been the only one to massively profit from the VW share frenzy. VW had in early 2000s an offer to all of its employees to acquire shares on a subsidized basis. Anyone who just bought the 50 shares offered each year at a discount price now would have made 250.000 Euro if he sold at 1000 Euro a share. Thanks to the Hedge Funds, the small workers have paid of their homes.
@zerofoo These guys seem to be pretty good at modeling market behavior: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Technologies 35% return per year is not bad. Ted, I don't know where you went to college for your engineering degree but plenty of my fellow engineering grads do not seem to fit into the barely human engineering cliche. http://www.seas.upenn.edu/history/overseers.html