Porsche told to end row over its future
LOWER Saxony, Volkswagen’s second-largest shareholder, again pushed Volkswagen (VW) and Porsche to break a deadlock in merger talks yesterday as the two German carmakers squabbled over a deal.
Disagreements among Porsche’s owning families and questions about preconditions for an investment by Middle Eastern Kingdom Qatar have held up progress toward creating a combined company, people close to the negotiations said.
“We need to clarify now whether each will go his own way or whether there is a common solution,” said Christian Wulff, premier of the German state of Lower Saxony.
Wulff said he felt a “certain irritation” after Porsche accused Volkswagen and Lower Saxony, which owns a blocking minority in Europe’s biggest carmaker, of holding a gun to its head to agree a deal quickly.
“Apparently not all facts are known to everyone,” he said.
Volkswagen and Lower Saxony have denied making any ultimatum which Porsche chairman Wolfgang Porsche and his deputy Uwe Hueck said in a joint statement on Saturday was “detrimental to the entire cause”.
Porsche said a document containing “deadlines” was sent to Wolfgang Porsche last week.
Porsche dismissed as unworkable any deal which involved a partial sale of its sports car business to Volkswagen, noting this would let banks call immediately a €10.75bn (£9.14bn) syndicated loan they awarded Porsche in March.
Porsche and Volkswagen have been in talks to create an “intergrated” automotive group after Porsche’s €9bn (£7.7bn) debt burden forced it to drop plans for a full takeover of VW.