Deutsche Bahn chief Ruediger Grube resigned Monday, Germany's state-owned rail operator said, surprising observers as it had widely been expected that his contract would be extended. "The supervisory board today unanimously approved Ruediger Grube's request to be removed as chair of the executive board, effective immediately," the company said in a statement.
DB said a successor would be announced "soon", while finance director Richard Lutz would stand in as CEO in the meantime.
A source close to the supervisory board told AFP that board members had been planning to extend Grube's contract at the Monday meeting.
Citing its own sources close to the supervisory board, news agency DPA said that Grube quit after the body offered him an extension of only two years.
He had wanted to stay on until the end of 2020 and had been willing to forego a salary increase, the sources said.
Grube had led Deutsche Bahn since 2009, taking over from former CEO Hartmut Mehdorn after a scandal involving spying on employees' emails.
The 65-year-old announced less than two weeks ago that Deutsche Bahn had returned to operating profit in 2016, booking a pre-tax profit of 1.8 billion euros ($1.9 billion) after a 154-million-euro loss in 2015.
DB, owned by the federal government in Berlin, employs some 300,000 people and boasts revenues of around 40 billion euros per year.