Ferdinand Piersch will be 80 next month. Many people can't wait for this day to come - he's finally too old to control the mass media.
On March 17, Porsche SE (Porsche Automobile Holdings) issued an official statement, saying that "the company has learned that the Porsche and Piersch families are negotiating whether the foundation under Ferdinand Piersch's control should transfer most of its indirect control of Porsche SE common shares to the Porschel and other members of the Piersche family".
The statement described the matter in three long lines, confirming previous rumours that Piersch would sell his stake in Porsche SE.
Understanding that with the transfer of most of his stake, Piersch will completely lose control of the Volkswagen Group.
According to the current situation, Porsche SE holds 52% of Volkswagen Group, the current CEO of Volkswagen Group Matias Mullen and the chairman of the board of supervisors Pan Shi are from the board of directors of Porsche SE, while Piersche holds 14.7% of Porsche SE.
Piersch's own desire to control mass groups is well known in the industry. In April 2015, Piersch, 78 years old, had hoped to "expel" Martin Ventern, then CEO. Unexpectedly, he was defeated in the "palace battle" and had to resign as chairman of the board of supervisors.
Since then, Piersch's control over mass groups has been weakening.
Reports from Reuters suggest that negotiations on the equity deal are likely to end in the next few weeks, even within this month. Local German media believe that the deal will make Porsche SE internal power more inclined to the Boscher family side.
That is to say, the opponent who wants to take the offer is impatient.
Although the two families of Piersch and Boscher belong to kinship, the struggle among them began as early as the 1960s and 1970s, and experienced a half-century of entanglement. The thrilling game of acquisition and anti-acquisition between Volkswagen and Porsche in 2008-2012 is still fresh in the memory of many auto industry practitioners.
At that time, auto analysts pointed out that Ferdinand Piersch and Wolfgang Polsher, who were in charge of Volkswagen and Porsche, were actually cousins. Whether Volkswagen bought Porsche or Porsche bought Volkswagen, it was no longer important. It was important to see that the two families were moving from confrontation to alliance.
It's hard for bystanders to know whether the two families after the union are at peace. But what you can see is that Porsche quickly became one of the most profitable brands of Volkswagen Group. According to the latest data, every Porsche 911 sold can earn a profit of $17.3 million, equivalent to the price of a Chevrolet Cruz.
Volkswagen Group, after the emission gate incident in 2015, has not experienced major fluctuations in its business as predicted. Last year, Volkswagen Group became the world's largest car company in sales, with operating income of 75.31 billion euros and net profit of 2.8 billion euros. The resilience of this huge automobile group is evident.
According to foreign media reports, it was under Piersch's leadership that Volkswagen Group grew from a local automobile manufacturer to one of the world's top automobile groups, but now the situation is clear. Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, an automotive industry expert at Duersburg-Essen University, said, "Piersch has no chance to complete his life's work, and he has lost most of his allies. It's a reasonable step to sell his stake."
According to Reuters, according to Volkswagen Group's current market value, Piersch's stake is worth more than 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion), and if the final deal is completed, Piersch's departure in Volkswagen's history will bring huge wealth.
