Thursday, January 26, 2012
By Manoj Kumawat
Volkswagen to buy major stake in Porsche
It would be no wonder if you see a Porsche Boxter, Porsche cayman, Porsche 911, Porsche Panamera, or Porsche Cayenne on roads this Diwali under the badge of Volkswagen. The reason before this is that Volkswagen is planning a 50.1 percent take over of sports car brand Porsche. Earlier, as reports suggest, VW thought of a merger of Porsche into it but following some legal glitches, things could not proceed in the positive direction.
It is reportedly known that Volkswagen has initiated a full merger process of Porsche Automobil Holding SE but following legal hurdles, the German major could not continue. Now, VW is thinking of buying the major stake in Porsche that will make VW the largest share holder and thus things will move in a way desired by the VW group. Sources say that if Volkswagen goes for a total merger of Porsche it will be paying $1 bn in Euros as taxes while there will be a lesser tax on partial merger or buyout of a major stake of the sports car maker. Notably Volkswagen AG has 49.9% stake in Porsche.
It is to be noted that VW and Porsche are already working at the same footing in the development of an electric car platform. The association between the due dates long back. In 1938, Porsche launched its first car Porsche 64 using major components from Volkswagen Beetle including engine, gearbox. Significantly, in 2002 Porsche Cayenne shared chassis with VW Touareg and Audi Q7 and are built in VW’s unit at Bratislava. Besides, both VW and Porsche have the same chief executive officer.
In addition to Porsche, VW has also expressed its interest in buying Suzuki in September 2011 but things could not move on. If materialized the merger of Suzuki with VW could have many repercussions for Maruti India as well.
