Credit : Carmagazine
Entries Tagged 'porsche' ↓
Looking That Nissan 370Z against Porsche Cayman
October 10th, 2008 — nissan, porsche, spyshot
Porsche maneuvers to take control of Volkswagen
September 18th, 2008 — Volkswagen, porsche
Porsche, whose speedy roadsters are synonymous with excitement and luxury, effectively claimed control Tuesday of Volkswagen, born as the maker of the so-called people’s car and now Europe’s largest automaker.
The move by Porsche to increase its stake in VW from 31 percent to just more than 35 percent - a controlling interest under German law - comes amid rising tensions between the two companies, as well as within the Porsche family.
Ferdinand Piech, the chairman of VW, is a cousin of Wolfgang Porsche, but the two men seem to be on a collision course, even as their two companies grow closer together. Last week, Piech skipped a crucial board meeting, giving the upper hand to Volkswagen employees who opposed Porsche’s attempts to integrate the two companies further.
“Piech effectively voted against his family, and the message is that there will be a war and we will see who is the winner,” said Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, the director of the Center for Automotive Research in Gelsenkirchen.
By upping its stake, Porsche wrote a new chapter in a saga that began three years ago, when it first acquired a 20 percent stake. Since then, Porsche’s hard-charging chief executive, Wendelin Wiedeking, has slowly asserted his smaller company’s control over the Goliath-like Volkswagen.
Now, VW’s unions fear Porsche will push through aggressive efficiency moves and reject their demand for a pay raise. A union official declined comment.
For the 71-year-old Piech, a onetime chief engineer at Porsche who has spent the past few decades at VW and its Audi subsidiary, observers say his concern is retaining VW’s engineering prowess while resisting Porsche’s more profit-oriented approach - along with preserving his legacy.
