Porsche gains control of VW and gets its hands on Audi

PORSCHE increased its shareholding in the Volkswagen Group to 35.14 per cent last week, raising its stake a further 4.89 per cent to control Europe’s largest car manufacturer and trigger a mandatory offer of VW’s prestige brand Audi.

In a statement released last week, Porsche chief executive Dr Wendelin Wiedeking said that Porsche had no interest in separating Audi from the Volkswagen Group, which as a result of the latest transaction sees VW become a subsidiary of Porsche Automobil Holding.

“We regard Audi as an integral part of the Volkswagen group and have no interest in removing the company from the group structure,” Dr Wiedeking said.

The statement said that Porsche was required under German law to submit a formal mandatory offer for Audi AG. The relevant offer documents must be filed with the German Federal Agency for Financial Services Supervision within the next four weeks.

Porsche said that in light of its intentions to keep Audi within the VW stable, it would offer only the minimum price prescribed by law for the Audi shares, which is expected to be about 487 Euros ($A850) per share.

Left: Porsche chief executive Dr Wendelin Wiedeking.

Porsche said that a further increase in its stake in Volkswagen was expected to take place “in the next months” and that it would, as announced in March, continue until it secured more than 50 per cent of Volkswagen.

“Our goal continues to be to increase our stake in Volkswagen to more than 50 per cent,” Dr Wiedeking said. “Today’s step is a further milestone along this road.

“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.”

Porsche said it had now secured a “lasting majority” at the VW annual general meeting. It also said employee representatives of Volkswagen would now take seats on both the works council and the supervisory board of Porsche SE.

Dr Wiedeking said he was confident that the co-operation between the employee representatives of Porsche and Volkswagen in both bodies – the works council and supervisory board – would help them “develop a better understanding of each other’s positions and would lead to a constructive and forward-looking co-existence”.

His comments reflect the power struggle being waged between Porsche and Volkswagen’s labour unions, which consider the actions of the Stuttgart-based sportscar manufacturer as a hostile takeover.

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Porsche raises VW stake