Ex-Volkswagen chief looks to sell $1.2-bn stake
Ferdinand Piëch, the scion of an automaking dynasty who dominated Volkswagen for two decades, is trying to sell his substantial indirect stake in the company to members of his extended family, which could create uncertainty in the aftermath of the carmaker’s diesel deception.
Piëch, a former chief executive and supervisory board chairman at Volkswagen, was often a source of discord among the quarrelsome Piëch and Porsche clans, which own more than 50 per cent of Volkswagen’s voting shares. His exit might make it easier for them to push through changes needed for Volkswagen to recover from an emissions deception that weighs heavily on the company.
The tight control, through Porsche Automobil Holding, has led to criticism that the family has been too slow to make the changes in management and company culture that are needed to move beyond the scandal. Most of the rest of Volkswagen’s shares are owned by the German state of Lower Saxony and the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar, which tend to side with the family.
But implicit in the disclosure on Friday was that Mr. Piëch could sell his roughly 15 stake in the family holding company, valued at 1.1 billion ($1.2 billion), to an outsider if he could not agree on terms with his relatives. That could weaken the family’s control of Volkswagen and create uncertainty about the company’s direction. “I expect that the family will not be able to raise the purchase price and that outside investors — for example from China — would come in,” Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, a professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen, said in an email. “The Chinese would not pass up such a chance.”
Wolfgang Porsche, a spokesman for Porsche family members, has told the German news media that the relatives would be willing to buy the stake.