Porsche finally becomes a VW company

Volkswagen has announced it is to finalise its takeover of Porsche by buying the remaining 50.1 per cent of Porsche stock for €4.46 billion.

The takeover of Porsche by VW has been a long and rocky road, but then family fallouts are always messy.

It all started with Porsche attempting to consume VW, but some clever manoeuvring by Ferdinand Piech thwarted the efforts of his cousin, Wolfgang Porsche, to swallow up his business and the financial crisis saw Porsche rack up €10 billion in debt in the process.

Porsche and VW agreed the takeover in 2009, but lawsuits against Porsche over the botched takeover put everything on hold. But now, after a deal with the German revenue over tax due on a put-call option, the deal has completed with Porsche becoming part of VW from 1st August.

Take away all the shenanigans, and this is all just a family bickering. And although Porsche is now officially a VW company – and pushing strongly towards sales of 200,000 on the back of that – the Porsche-Piech families still control over 50 per cent of VW, and therefore Porsche.

But it’s nice to have everything tidied up so VW can continue with its world domination plans.