Change at the top for Metro

Dr. Hans-Joachim Körber, aged 61, who has been a member of Metro AG’s managing board since 1996 and its chief executive since 1999, is leaving the company, which claims to be the world’s third-largest retailer, on 31 October 2007. Metro AG’s personnel and appointments committee is recommending that the supervisory board should appoint its current chairman, Dr. Eckhard Cordes, to the position of incoming board member and confer the chairmanship on him as well. Dr. Körber joined Metro in 1985, originally as a member of the management of Metro’s cash & carry stores, then from 1991 as a member of the management of Metro International AG in Baar, Switzerland. He was appointed to the managing board of the Metro Group in Düsseldorf in 1996, to the position of executive officer in 1999, and of chairman in 2001.