Let's not forget that Porsche makes cars, too...
The soap opera that is Porsche’s financial wranglings with VW took a new twist at the weekend when Porsche’s chairman, Wolfgang Porsche, accused VW of attempting to blackmail the debt-laden sports car company.
According to an article in German news magazine Der Spiegel, VW has been pressing for Porsche to accept a revised merger plan between the two companies by the end of June, although VW has denied these allegations.
In response, Wolfgang Porsche said: “Ultimatums do not belong in the 21st century. We won’t be blackmailed.”
After racking up 9 billion euros (£7.6bn) in debt in the course of its recently aborted attempt to take over VW, Porsche has been left struggling to finance itself, despite owning more than half of VW’s shares. As a result, the major Porsche shareholders agreed to a merger between the two companies to help bail out Porsche.
But Wolfgang Porsche and his cousin Ferdinand Piech, who is both VW chairman and a major Porsche shareholder, cannot agree how best to help Porsche. Piech is said to favour the sale of 49 per cent of the sports car business to VW to help prop up the company, while Mr Porsche is keener on a capital increase of Porsche’s holding company.
Piech is also keen that Porsche sells 20 per cent of its stake in VW to the Gulf state of Qatar, while Mr Porsche – and Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking – also wants Qatar to invest directly in Porsche.