Dr. Horst Teltschik reaches retirement age and leaves the BMW Board

Dr. Teltschik will remain as a consultant and as head of the Herbert
Quandt Foundation; Public Affairs and the political contacts offices
will be assigned to Corporate Communcations, which reports to the
Chairman of the Board Munich. Dr. h.c. Horst Teltschik will be
reaching his 60th birthday on 14 June 2000, and will thus be leaving
the Board of BMW AG at the end of the month; he will continue to be
active for BMW as the Board's representative for Central and Eastern
Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and as Chairman of the Board of the
Herbert Quandt Foundation. Dr. Teltschik has been a member of the Board
of BMW AG since 1 January 1993; he is responsible for the Business and
Political Affairs Department, which was created when he was appointed.
After his departure from the BMW Board, the Public Affairs section and
the political contacts offices in Berlin / Bonn, Brussels, Washington
and London will report to the Chairman of the Board at BMW, and will be
answerable to the Director of BMW's Corporate Communications, Richard
Gaul (53). Gaul's areas of responsibility will continue to cover
communication strategies, product and engineering communication,
economic and corporate affairs and PR programmes. This new structure
reflects BMW's intent to take into account the increasing significance
of these areas. Horst Teltschik's political career - which included
posts as Chief of Division in the Chancellor's Office and Head of the
Department for Foreign and Internal Relations - reached its high point
with the opening up of the East. In the phase of détente between
East and West, he was one of the people driving this development
forward, gaining support through his open, expert, confidence-building
dialogue. Professor Joachim Milberg, Chairman of the Board at BMW AG,
paid tribute to his colleague's work by saying, "Horst Teltschik
knows more than anyone else how to create a fruitful dialogue between
commerce and politics. We have learned much about the world of politics
from him, and he has been able to pass on many of our ideas and
concerns to politicians." As regards Dr. Teltschik's hard work in
opening up new markets for the BMW Group, Milberg also added, "It
is an accepted fact that it is very largely thanks to Dr. Teltschik's
intuition that we are in such a healthy position today throughout Asia,
especially China, but also in Eastern Europe. I am thinking
particularly of the factory in Kaliningrad, which we would never have
been able to develop in this form and, above all, in such a short time
without Dr. Teltschik's connections." The titles that Dr.
Teltschik has been awarded throughout his life are a clear reflection
of the esteem and reputation that he enjoys all over the world: amongst
others, he has been awarded Honorary Doctorates by Sogang University in
Seoul and the University of Budapest, he is the Honorary General Consul
of India for Bavaria and Thuringia, a member of the German-Japanese
Dialogue Forum and a member of the German-Indian Consultancy Group.
Horst Teltschik will now devote himself to providing the company with
his consultancy services and to being head of the Herbert Quandt
Foundation, which he has been running since 1993 alongside his Board
duties. The goal adopted by the Foundation is to encourage global
political dialogue through suitable programmes and events.