VW to Buy Porsche for $11.8b

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14 Comments on “VW to Buy Porsche for $11.8b...”

• 	lw July 18th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
  I’m psyched. Imagine a 911 GT diesel. It wouldn’t win the 1/4 mile, but you could have the hottest looking vehicle with a class 5 hitch option.
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• 	PeteMoran July 18th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
  Just hand over the 911 Turbo w/PDK.
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• 	John Horner July 18th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
  Automotive News doesn’t seem to have any of its own reporting on this story, but simply repeats what is being said in the German magazines Der Spiegel and Focus. It is really amazing to me how much of traditional “reporting” is really nothing more than what we now call news blogging. The sooner the Porsche/VW drama is over, the better. Strategically they should be a unified company. Now they can get back to the real business of competing in a brutal market. Hopefully their days of playing wannabe hedge fund are over as well. Porsche’s PR spin about being the world’s most profitable independent car company was always a crock. Porsche and VW have been joined at the hip since birth. The very first Porsches were chock full of VW platform components. Independent? BS. The original Porsche 356s used a VW engine, transaxle and suspension components. 914, 924 & Toureg are all shared platform, shared component vehicles.
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• 	KnightRT July 19th, 2009 at 1:27 am
  I’m confused. Wikipedia says Porsche owns most of VW. And VW will buy Porsche? I haven’t been paying attention.
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• 	commando1 July 19th, 2009 at 4:30 am
  “I’m confused. Wikipedia says Porsche owns most of VW. And VW will buy Porsche? I haven’t been paying attention.” I hear you, brother. I’ve been trying to understand Porsche’s finances for the last year and the more I read, the more I can’t believe that Madoff wasn’t involved… Somebody is definately playing the numbers like Mozart.
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• 	Vega July 19th, 2009 at 7:49 am
  “The original Porsche 356s used a VW engine, transaxle and suspension components” Yes, but who do you think designed these components before the war? There you go…
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• 	commando1 July 19th, 2009 at 9:14 am
  “…Yes, but who do you think designed these components before the war? There you go…” And Ghia designed for everybody. Apples and oranges… Not relevant to topic. The gist of this is the Porsche/Audi/VW inbreeding of various designing, technology, manufacturing, et al. It’s as if Larry, his brother Daryll, and his other brother Daryll are arguing who was the father.
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• 	John Horner July 19th, 2009 at 9:58 am
  Vega: That is my point. Porsche has never been an “independent” automaker. Porsche and VW have been joined at the hip from the very start. The existence of two separate corporate facades is the stuff of business, war and family dramas more than it is actual working realities. Of course, were it not for a very determined British Major Hirst along with Herbert Hoover’s decision to change post war allied policy away from the de-industrialization of Germany which had been the plan from 1945 until mid-1947; there wouldn’t have been an Volkswagen or Porsche companies to this day. A pity the Allied governments didn’t take an ownership stake in German industry in return for enabling rebuilding.
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• 	spyspeed July 19th, 2009 at 11:09 am
  The prior corporate structure resulted in the Cayenne. The new one can only be better.
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• 	krhodes1 July 19th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
  The way this is reported is what causes the confusion. There are TWO Porsche companies: The Porsche that makes all those sportscars, and the holding company that wholely owns the Porsche company that makes the cars and also ownes a whole bunch of other stuff, car dealerships, etc. Porsche the holding company used financial magic to buy a big chunk of Volkswagen. And then screwed the pooch by getting in over its head. So Volkswagen is going to buy the Porsche CAR company. When you come right down to it, the net effect is the same, Porsche the car company and Volkswagen become one company. The only change is who is calling the shots – Piech, instead of Wiedeking. It’s all the same families either way. @John Horner – Until all of this financial machination, Porsche was very much independent. It’s just that Porsche and VW are both owned/controlled by the same families, the Porsches and the Piechs. (Hatfields and McCoys?) So of course it was in everyone’s best interests to have a nice cozy relationship and share resources. Do you honestly think that little Porsche could have afforded to design the Cayenne all on thier own? Of course not, gigantic VW provided the bulk of the heavy lifting, and both families smiled all the way to the bank. Same all the way back to the 356. VW gets paid for this, of course, just not necessarily at full market value… Out of curiousity, does anyone know how much of VW is actually owned by the two families? Do they have a deal like the Fords where a relatively small ownership percentage results in control due to special voting stock?
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• 	venator July 19th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
  @John Horner: Herbert Hoover? He left office in early 1933. Surely you meant Harry Truman!
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• 	th009 July 19th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
  krhodes1: Out of curiousity, does anyone know how much of VW is actually owned by the two families? Do they have a deal like the Fords where a relatively small ownership percentage results in control due to special voting stock? The Porsche and Piëch families do not have any significant direct ownership of VW shares (distinct from the Porsche SE holdings). Ferdinand Piëch, though, left the family sportscar business in 1971 and joined Audi in 1972. He moved up the ranks fairly quickly, and was named the CEO in 1993, succeeding Carl Hahn. Piëch has built a strong power base at VW, including the works council, allowing him to wield power beyond a typical VW CEO.
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• 	mattstairs July 19th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
  venator Actually, Hoover was appointed by Truman to assess the ability of postwar Germany to feed and sustain itself. Hoover determined that a solely agricultural Germany was impossible, unless 25 million people were moved or killed.
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• 	joeaverage July 24th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
  Okay you guys did a great job explaining Porsche. What about Audi and Seat and Skoda? All divisions of VW like Buick is of GM?
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