Wednesday 17th September 2008

Porsche Increases VW Stake

German sportscar manufacturer takes greater control of Volkswagen

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Porsche has tightened its grip on VW by acquiring a further 4.89% stake in the company. The sportscar manufacturer now has a 35.14% stake in VW and has a lasting majority at the VW annual general meeting.

Dr. Wendelin Wiedeking, Chief Executive Officer of Porsche, said: ‘Our goal continues to be to increase our stake in Volkswagen to more than 50 per cent. Today’s step is a further milestone along this road.’ He added: ‘We look forward to continuing and intensifying our cooperation with the Managing Board of Volkswagen, which is based on a spirit of mutual trust, and are hoping for a quick resolution of the conflict between the employee representatives of Porsche and VW.’

By going above 35 per cent of the voting rights, Porsche will acquire de facto control of the Wolfsburg-based group. As a result, employee representatives of Volkswagen will now take seats in the Works Council of Porsche SE and the Supervisory Board of Porsche SE. As a result of the new shareholder structure, Porsche is required by law to submit a formal mandatory offer for the VW subsidiary Audi AG, Ingolstadt.

The relevant offer documents must be filed with the German Federal Agency for Financial Services Supervision within the next four weeks. This formality is a statutory requirement and has no effect whatsoever on the intentions of Porsche. Dr. Wiedeking commented: ‘We regard Audi as an integral part of the Volkswagen group and have no interest in removing the company from the group structure.’

In light of this, Porsche will only offer the minimum price prescribed by law for the shares, which is expected to be about 487 Euro per Audi share. Volkswagen has stated that it will not be accepting the offer for its 99.14 per cent of the Audi shares. In practice, therefore, the mandatory offer only relates to a freefloat of 0.86 per cent, representing approximately 370,000 Audi shares. Based on last Monday’s closing price, these are valued at approximately 170 million Euro.

[andyuk911]

Will Porsche sell off Audi ... that would be interesting

[youngsyr]

andyuk911 said:

Will Porsche sell off Audi ... that would be interesting

Dr. Wiedeking commented: ‘We regard Audi as an integral part of the Volkswagen group and have no interest in removing the company from the group structure.’


That seems pretty unequivocal to me?

Edited by youngsyr on Wednesday 17th September 11:58

[german tony]

A. They have said that they have no intention of so-doing & B, why would they? It's not like Audi are competition to Porsche. Audi may find it's days as a sportcar/luxury SUV manufacturer are numbered though.

More likely is that Bentley, Bugatti & Lamborghini will get the push.

[Mannginger]

What's the Work's Council conflict about, anyone know?

I presume VW Group Reps saying they have "more members" therefore should be the leaders of the pack, with the Porsche Reps saying "ah yes but we bought you, so we should be king?"

Phil

[brotherharry]

Bentley - cruisers for the monied with racing pretensions but actually no desire to do anything quite so uncouth
Lamborghini - look at me I play football/I'm a tad ostentatious
Bugatti - I speak Russian or Arabic
Porsche - I am in fact a nob or I'm wrestling with the fact people think I'm a nob whilst driving one of the best handling engineered cars in the world
Audi - I am in fact way too boringcool to have anything quite so cheap as a one liner that sums me up


...all entirely mutually exclusive, so no need to sling out the babies there.

[Munich]

Audi won’t go. The brand is too strong in growing markets (it just needs to sort itself out in the US). Audi will continue to offer an SUV to rival the Cayenne because with the additional volume it provides the project with improved economies of scale.

Personally I can't see Bentley being sold off either. With the exception of 911 specials, Bentley is in a different price class to Porsche, and with the exception of football players and rappers, I would say the customer base is different.

Bugatti is an interesting one. The whole project was really just a flight of fancy for VW – a demonstration of engineering excellence. That fact that very little money, if any, will be made from this venture (although the engineering lesson learnt from the development of the Bugatti will be invaluable to the VW group) make it impossible for another company to consider it a going venture - especially with the direction the world economy is heading. I think its case of, who would want to buy the brand, rather than whether Porsche wants to sell it.

However, if I was working at Lamborghini then I would be starting to worry. Direct competitor to Porsche (although pricier so hopefully higher margins), but Audi went and shot itself in the foot with the R8. You have to be a serious Lamborghini fan to justify buying one of those over an R8 (even if you do get a V12).

[JayKaybi]

Munich said:

However, if I was working at Lamborghini then I would be starting to worry. Direct competitor to Porsche (although pricier so hopefully higher margins), but Audi went and shot itself in the foot with the R8. You have to be a serious Lamborghini fan to justify buying one of those over an R8 (even if you do get a V12).

Erm..... R8 vs Murcielago LP640.... not exactly a straight fight.

Unless you mean V10, and you're comparing the Gallardo LP 560/4, which is £70k more and, trust me, an absolute sh!toad more interesting.

Edited by JayKaybi on Wednesday 17th September 12:51

[amare32]

Expect a 2 year warranty on all Audis and VWs ala Porsche...

[clarencegi77]

Mannginger said:

What's the Work's Council conflict about, anyone know?

I presume VW Group Reps saying they have "more members" therefore should be the leaders of the pack, with the Porsche Reps saying "ah yes but we bought you, so we should be king?"

Phil

Topgear's website has an article that mentions this..
it's a dog eat dog industry out there

[pagani1]

brotherharry is a typical unsophisticated Brit.
The ethos of describing types of people who buy types of cars is so passe and people today usually buy the car they like and can afford.
Most Bugatti buyers are American-do they speak russian?? People who buy Porsche love their engineering and performance qualities and are not nobs. Lamborghini buyers are clearly turned on by the extrovert design and exclusivity and all of the above are just guesses/opinions by me.
I am a Porsche 911 owner-it's 19 years old and still wonderful, but i have owned Alfa Sud Sprint, Lancia Montecarlo, Mazda RX-7's, Audi TT and S4's, BMW M5 and Z1, and 944S2 and Boxster.I'm an enthusiast just like every other pistonheader so let's not get judgemental about who you must be because you own a .......syndrome and leave it to that ugly tall judgemental Clarkson who is clearly in love with his own opinion at least on TV. Goodnight Vienna

[peter450]

I think the brother forgot to add ford owners

Small minded types who are insecure and critical of any car more expensive than a focus

Edited by peter450 on Wednesday 17th September 19:36

[buddhabelly]

pagani1 said:

brotherharry is a typical unsophisticated Brit.
The ethos of describing types of people who buy types of cars is so passe and people today usually buy the car they like and can afford.
Most Bugatti buyers are American-do they speak russian?? People who buy Porsche love their engineering and performance qualities and are not nobs. Lamborghini buyers are clearly turned on by the extrovert design and exclusivity and all of the above are just guesses/opinions by me.
I am a Porsche 911 owner-it's 19 years old and still wonderful, but i have owned Alfa Sud Sprint, Lancia Montecarlo, Mazda RX-7's, Audi TT and S4's, BMW M5 and Z1, and 944S2 and Boxster.I'm an enthusiast just like every other pistonheader so let's not get judgemental about who you must be because you own a .......syndrome and leave it to that ugly tall judgemental Clarkson who is clearly in love with his own opinion at least on TV. Goodnight Vienna

Not wishing to pick on anyone, but I agree with Pagani1, its tiresome and about time we moved on from the boring media and cheap journalistic imagery of drivers and marques. As petrolheads I trust we are all unique, and have learnt to love cars far beyond the petty prejudices of the illiterate. Do not all of us wish one day to sit/drive/race/own a bugatti, ferrari, aston, porsche etc?? Does that make you a prick?

[dpbird90]

brotherharry said:

Lamborghini - look at me I play football/I'm a tad ostentatious

Excuse me? Fair enough, some premiership footballers may be owners of Lamborghini's, but on the whole Mr Rooney's personal choices include Hummers and annoyingly dreadful Cadillacs. However most Premiership footballer types find favour with Ferrari 430 Spiders in obligatory red, or most I know of have Bentley Continental GT's.

Fair enough, some people may find Lambo's a bit ostentatious (e.g. James May) but Lamborghini's have to be completely mad because it's Italian and not a Ferrari so it has to go one better and be damn right outlandish. Put it this way, Lambo's are designed mostly to appeal to 7 year old boys so they can put posters of them on their bedroom walls, and by doing this, it reminds the rest of us why we love cars so much, because deep down we all know that when we step into a supercar (not just Lambo's but Ferrari's, Zonda's Koenigsegg etc) we want it to make us feel 7 years old again. And that is what the Lambo does best. I love how they go the complete opposite way to making a supercar to Ferrari.
To borrow a quote from JC:
The Maranello boys put so much effort into making sure their products are the best driver's cars on earth, making sure every minute detail is perfect, and every single part is as good as it can be.
All Lamborghini do is paint their cars yellow and fill them full of engine.

Or the other way to think of it (another JC-ism) is that in Italy there are two way to remove teeth. The Ferrari way, a precision high speed drill made of the finest quality materials known to man, or the Lamborghini way, which is a good old fashioned lump hammer.


Anyway, back to the topic. Porsche would probably sell off Lambo, as the Gallardo in any form would run rings round even the 911 GT2. That would mean Audi could finally put a huge engine in the R8, because then they wouldn't have to worry about it being a Lambo-beater, but this would have Porsche worried, and then they would sell off Audi.

[DennisTheMenace]

peter450 said:

I think the brother forgot to add ford owners

Small minded types who are insecure and critical of any car more expensive than a focus

Edited by peter450 on Wednesday 17th September 19:36

After seeing Vw's latest fit and finish in a tiguan , i would look at a focus/kuga as the better car , yes ford are still doing the stupid cost cutting measures that are blindingly obvious but vw fit the squidgy dash and cut cost in unseen areas , hence their crap reliability . They are living off a reputation and nothing else , and the crap that dealer feed customers is unreal ... the aformentioned spraytan (think cuprinol man and you will have an idea of the woman i fitted a car kit for) fed her crap like the centre part of the dash (same as a golf +) is a feature , so when i told her thts where the bracket for the cradle goes , she is up in arms that it will ruin this "feature"
VW Really do have ideas above thier station.

[peter450]

DennisTheMenace said:

peter450 said:

I think the brother forgot to add ford owners

Small minded types who are insecure and critical of any car more expensive than a focus

Edited by peter450 on Wednesday 17th September 19:36

After seeing Vw's latest fit and finish in a tiguan , i would look at a focus/kuga as the better car , yes ford are still doing the stupid cost cutting measures that are blindingly obvious but vw fit the squidgy dash and cut cost in unseen areas , hence their crap reliability . They are living off a reputation and nothing else , and the crap that dealer feed customers is unreal ... the aformentioned spraytan (think cuprinol man and you will have an idea of the woman i fitted a car kit for) fed her crap like the centre part of the dash (same as a golf +) is a feature , so when i told her thts where the bracket for the cradle goes , she is up in arms that it will ruin this "feature"
VW Really do have ideas above thier station.

You totaly missed the meaning behind that post, but for the record i think ford make fine cars

[fastgerman.com]

brotherharry said:

Bentley - cruisers for the monied with racing pretensions but actually no desire to do anything quite so uncouth
Lamborghini - look at me I play football/I'm a tad ostentatious
Bugatti - I speak Russian or Arabic
Porsche - I am in fact a nob or I'm wrestling with the fact people think I'm a nob whilst driving one of the best handling engineered cars in the world
Audi - I am in fact way too boringcool to have anything quite so cheap as a one liner that sums me up


...all entirely mutually exclusive, so no need to sling out the babies there.

Hahaha just looked at your profile and you have a Ford.... why is it people sl@g off Porsche, Audi, BMW etc for apparently being 'nobs'. I think these people are just jealous that they have Ford / Vauxhall pig metal on their driveways!

Edited by fastgerman.com on Thursday 18th September 10:12

[roadsweeper]

pagani1 said:

brotherharry is a typical unsophisticated Brit.
The ethos of describing types of people who buy types of cars is so passe and people today usually buy the car they like and can afford.
Most Bugatti buyers are American-do they speak russian?? People who buy Porsche love their engineering and performance qualities and are not nobs. Lamborghini buyers are clearly turned on by the extrovert design and exclusivity and all of the above are just guesses/opinions by me.
I am a Porsche 911 owner-it's 19 years old and still wonderful, but i have owned Alfa Sud Sprint, Lancia Montecarlo, Mazda RX-7's, Audi TT and S4's, BMW M5 and Z1, and 944S2 and Boxster.I'm an enthusiast just like every other pistonheader so let's not get judgemental about who you must be because you own a .......syndrome and leave it to that ugly tall judgemental Clarkson who is clearly in love with his own opinion at least on TV. Goodnight Vienna

If you'd left out the first line of your post I might have taken the sentiments expressed below it, relating to sweeping judgements, a tad more seriously. The irony is staggering.

[james_tigerwoods]

I don't get it - why would Porsche bother buying up VW - I thought the trend had been for big manufacturers (VAG, GM, etc) to buy up the more niche manufacturers?

[bobbylondonuk]

IMO... porsche as a business is very profitable compared to other car makers...but sales volumes will be declining in coming years due to financial turmoil on a global scale...

with VAG being its subsidiary...they are in a position to consolidate production costs, technological r&d costs, marketing costs etc.

the perfect scenario: 911 & cayman as a pure porsche line, R8& Lambo as another line, Audi-VW-Seat-cayenne etc as another line. Imagine the parts sharing which results in components and parts supply, manufacturing units, technological r&d, marketing cost on a per unit basis given the sales potential of the above products/brands combined !!!!

They are trying to ride the storm cloud...along with the potential to be the biggest carmaker in EU that too in a premium image ......well thats what i feel.

[Defcon5]

Could this have abything to do with the coming regulations on emissions against manufacturers? Im sure I heard somewhere that they must have an average CO2 output of x amount across the entire range, so if Porsches 'range' includes the Polo/Golf etc it will bring their average emmisions down so they dont have to change their current engine designs too much