It seems destined, that Volkswagen and Porsche will be united finally.
For those of you not knowing what goes on between them, do you all wonder why all Porsches looked a bit like the original Beetle? with their rounded headlights, swooping rear hatch and a rear engine?
Volkswagen was created by Ferdinand Porsche (Obvious now right?), in the 2nd World War, with funding from the Nazi party, Ferdinand got the endorsement from Hitler, for wanting a car to conquer the Egyptians, meaning the car need not be cooled by water. Porsche developed the Beetle, one that's cooled by air for the Nazis.
Fast forward a few decades, Porsche's son founded the Porsche AG, a sports car manufacturer.
Today, Ferdinand Piech, son of Ferdinand Porsche's daughter, which holds a 13% stake in Porsche, is also the chairman of Volkswagen AG.
However Piech doesnt have any decision making powers in Porsche, followed a 1970s decision vote by Porsche's board that members of the Porsche family shall not intervene with Porsche's decision making.
Porsche AG, however having close ties with Volkswagen, had always wanted to control this enormouse, world's 3rd largest automotive company, given that there are plenty of strategic opportunities, and as many had suspiciously wandered, could also be due to Volkswagen's foray of increasingly eating into Porsche's market by acquiring brands like Lamborghini and Bugatti, and Audi, launching it's own mid engine sportscar, the R8 which many had claimed being better than the 911.
There is a sense of fear that Porsche would want to stop all this from it's friendly 'rival'; whereby Porsche would want to protect it's highly lucrative hing end sports car, SUV, luxury sedan market. More worryingly, is that Porsche had never decline such allegations.
However thou Porsche had previously purchased enough shares that grants it majority, there is an age old law in Germany by the State of Lower Saxony, that no matter whichever party holds majority shares, the voting rights will be no more than 20%, this is to protect the benefits Volkswagen provides to the State of Lower Saxony.
Porsche however had argued this to the European Union, stating since Germany is part of EU, should be subjected to EU's trade freedom, that all individual country's law would be preceded by EU's decision.
The State of Lower Saxony had repeatedly tried to fight on with Porsche's hostile takeover, however given that the sports car manufacturer's increasingly heavy cash vault, it's highly unlikely that there's a fight at all.
And finally, EU had granted rights to Porsche to takeover Volkswagen AG, which consists of Volkswagen, Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, Skoda, Seat, Man AG, and Scania.
Let's hope VW's small mid engine sportscar will survive this, as well as the next Bugatti and Audi's upcoming R10.
