Asklepios Managing Director of International, Dr. Rolf Lucas, is to quit Asklepios, Europe's largest private hospital group. He is replaced by Dr. Jochen Schmidt. 

A terse email from Asklepios said that "the current business politics will be continued".

But sources say that Asklepios, the €2.3bn sales hospital group, which is still entirely owned by its founder, Bernhard gr. Broermann, now appears less interested in international expansion in Eastern Europe and China.

Asklepios still retains a 30% stake in Athens Medical, the big quoted Greek hospital group which also has operations in Romania, but it appears to have decided against further large expansion in Eastern Europe.

The company was known to have been looking for sites to build a large hospital in Warsaw. East European contacts say that Asklepios management tended to be very German-centric in their approach.