Wendelin Wiedeking and Finance chief Holger Haerter will quit Porsche immediately. Following the turmoil that went around Porsche's appetite for Volkswagen, a sister company originated from the same founder, yet many times its size. It wasn't too long ago when Wendelin Wiedeking was named European CEO of the year. Featured on Fortune's cover for his magical turn around of Porsche. The luxury sports automaker that seemingly breaks every rule in the elite, luxury market. Comparing Ferraris and Porsches are things we hear everyday, but considering Ferraris sell in the regions of 5000 - 7000 cars annually, Porsche cannot then be mentioned in the same breath with unit productions hovering above 100,000 units.
Engineered the infusion of backwards marketing of luxury sports manufacturers, Porsche first step foot onto BMW X5 and Range Rover's category with the Porsche Cayenne, hinting buyers of Mercedes ML63 AMG that they need not splurge the same amount of money on something that would eventually be mistaken for an ML350. The market responded and the Porsche that's seemingly too 'Greedy' was given an adrenalin shot.
Back in year 2008, when plenty of automakers suffer, Porsche posted a shocking 13 Billion profit, over 11 Billion revenue. How would that translate into accounting is already a nightmare to most companies. Porsche has become literally a hedge fund company that happened to 'by-the-way' produce cars. With Wiedeking constantly monitoring Volkswagen's shares, manipulating them, Porsche was able to bet on public's believe that its imminent for Porsche AG to 'takeover' Volkswagen to avoid new European gas emission taxes, which takes into account on average emissions of automotive groups.
Having the public believing firmly this is what Porsche's pursuing, Wiedeking then release a host of 'rumors' about when Porsche will takeover Volkswagen, pushing share prices of Volkswagen well over 1,000 Euros on one account, temporarily making VW the largest market capitalization company that very afternoon. These moves had angered Ferdinand Piech for quite a while, which publicly shunned Wendelin Wiedeking's move and even criticizing his fellow cousin Wolfgang Porsche, grandson of Ferdinand Porsche (Founder of Volkswagen AG), and son to Ferry Porsche (Founder of Porsche AG); leading to widespread rumors of Wendelin Wiedeking, having backed by Wolfgang, will be planning to oust Ferdinand Porsche once taking over Volkswagen.
The incident even involved Lower Saxony's government, which Volkswagen had great relationships with and also a law that predates the European Union, which rules no single party or group, even with any number or percentage of shares in Volkswagen, would have voting rights of no more than 20%. With this law in effect, Porsche would have no outright say in Volkswagen's board even if their plans of taking over 75% of VW succeeded. Porsche AG then brought this appeal to the European Union, which pressured onto Germany (laughingly) to remove this sanction, marking another important step for Wolfgang+Wiedeking's win in this episode.
Ferdinand Piech on the other hand, had long tried his every best securing Volkswagen's sovereignty, not that its too difficult a game as he had the Lower Saxony Government on his side, and Volkswagen's all-mighty and powerful Unions behind him, which employs most of Lower Saxony's residents. Opportunity arises when last month, word broke out that Porsche is now stranded in cash, having borrowed too heavily for the stunt of elephant swallowing, the snake's apparently left no room for itself to breath. Rumors then spread out that Porsche maybe facing bankruptcy if there's no cash infusion soon. This pose as the golden opportunity for the world's second largest automaker (first at times in these markets). Volkswagen offered buying over 51% of Porsche; which Porsche jokingly refuses and re-offered 49.9% will be the maximum they would give up (like there's a choice? ehem?)
Everyone knew from that point of time, Wendelin Wiedeking's prodigy is over, his 12 year stint in Porsche from engineering the most remarkable turnaround to one of the most humiliating force-quits just happened to be so similar to most of Wall Street's bankers and brokers - GREED.
