Porsche supervisory board backs tougher restructuring

By Rachel More

BERLIN, July 22 (Reuters) - Porsche's supervisory board gave its blessing to the next round of restructuring measures on Wednesday, a company spokesperson said, with media reporting plans to double job cuts at the embattled German carmaker to 9,000.

CEO Michael Leiters has been tasked with overhauling the Volkswagen sports-car subsidiary after it went from profit driver to crisis case, hit by a collapse in China sales, tariff woes and costly electric vehicle missteps.

Porsche management plans to cut another 5,000 jobs, Manager Magazin reported earlier on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources. Bild newspaper reported that Leiters was seeking between 5,000 and 6,000 job cuts by 2035.

A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on the contents of the latest restructuring package negotiated with labour representatives, saying only that the supervisory board backed the initiative.

"Now it's time to finalise the last steps," the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Some 3,900 redundancies were already agreed under Leiters' predecessor Oliver Blume, who today serves only as Volkswagen CEO after ending a controversial dual leadership role at the turn of the year.

Blume is also tasked with a radical restructuring at group-level, having warned that 100,000 jobs could be cut across the Volkswagen Group in its battle to become cost-competitive, as it faces pressure from Chinese competitors and absorbs billions in U.S. tariff costs.

Porsche's restructuring package is expected to be presented to workers on Monday.

Redundancies in the Volkswagen Group often come with guarantees for future staff or plant commitments sought by powerful unions.

Any such commitments at Porsche could prove controversial at a time when four German plants belonging to VW and the group's premium brand, Audi, are threatened with closure in the next decade under Blume.

Margins at Porsche, long one of the Volkswagen Group's most profitable businesses, crashed in recent years from comfortable double-digit percentages to only 1.1% last year.

Leiters' strategy involves stringent belt-tightening and a narrower model lineup focusing on margin-boosting high-end models like the 911 sports car and luxury SUVs.

One of his first measures was to close three subsidiaries ​to concentrate on Porsche's core ​business, axing 500 jobs on top of the 3,900 cuts already announced.

(Reporting by Rachel MoreEditing by David Goodman and Nia Williams)