Ferdinand Piech, Volkswagen AG’s former strongman, is in talks to sell shares in the holding company that controls the German carmaker to his relatives, as a family feud that has intensified in recent weeks comes to a head.
The billionaire Porsche-Piech clan is in discussions with VW's former chief executive about a transfer of "the major part" of his shares, said Porsche Automobil Holding SE, which owns 52 per cent of Volkswagen's voting stock. Piech's stake of about 15 per cent of Porsche Holdings' common stock is valued at roughly €1.1 billion based on the price of the publicly-traded preferred shares.
Isolated
Piech has become increasingly isolated after alleging that his cousin Wolfgang Porsche and other VW supervisory board leaders may have known about Volkswagen’s emissions cheating earlier than they said. That prompted the Porsche and Piech families to seek to replace him on the supervisory board of Porsche Holding, people familiar with the situation said earlier this week.
Piech (79) who led Volkswagen for two decades before stepping down amid a power struggle in 2015, is a grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, who invented the VW Beetle. Selling the shares would mark the end of Piech’s influence at the world’s biggest auto manufacturer.
Negotiations are ongoing, and there’s no assurance of an agreement, according to the statement. – (Bloomberg)
