Monday, September 15, 2008

Porsche to launch Coup d'état on VW Chairman Ferdinand Piech

I believe everyone was made aware of the hostile takeover of Porsche on Volkswagen, one of the richest taking over biggest. Upon overcoming heaps of barrier that includes the law of the state of lower Saxony in Germany by suing all over European Unions courts, even to the point where Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking has repeatedly being reported to be in bad terms with Ferdinand Piech, a nephew of Ferdinand Porsche, a current major shareholder in Porsche, and Chairman of Volkswagen. It's now reported that Wolfgang Porsche(right in below picture), Chairman of Porsche, direct descendant of Porsche and Volkswagen founder is now launching a coup on Ferdinand Piech to dethrone him in Volkswagen upon gaining major support from other clans that controls Porsche. Following Porsche's inevitable 51% control on Volkswagen by year end.

This had come where Ferdinand(standing left in picture), much supported by the worker unions in VW had repeatedly tried protecting VW from Porsche's takeover, which was seen as very hostile as Porsche had previously announced they have no plans to keep VW as a charitable work place for excessive work force, and Audi's success on revamping Lamborghini and it's own foray into the supercar business was itself responsible for 30-40% of Porsche's declining 911 sales. Moreover, fears of Porsche axing Audi's development in sportscars was never declined by Porsche.

Following last Friday's turbulent shareholder's meeting, where Ferdinand Piech was reportedly having faceoffs with 3 Porsche representatives, Porsche has been very upfront with their press talks, with Wolfgang being quoted " I'm horrified with the chairman's behavior." and another Porsche manager, on the displacing of Ferdinand Piech as "It's not a question of IF, rather WHEN and HOW."

However, Ferdinand Piech, which serves as CEO of Audi and Volkswagen before becoming chairman in 2002, was strongly backed by Volkswagen's powerful unions and current CEO Martin Winterkorn, and had previously survived several coup attempts, but none as evident as the current major shareholder.