The Official "Porsche is NOT owned by Volkswagen" Thread!

[Muzza]

Dear "Volks",

I was wrong: as confirmed by my friends working for Volkswagen, the Porsche company is not part of the Volkswagen AG group.

Although both companies have common roots (Ferdinand Porsche designed the "Käfer" - the "Beetle" - as commissioned by the German government in 1934), have some special joint ventures set together (as the new VW/Audi/Porsche sport utilities) and have some common major shareholders (as Lee Janotta said), Volkswagen does not own Porsche.

The Volkswagen AG group is composed by nine brands: VW (cars), VW Commercial Vehicles (Nutzfahrzeuge), Audi, Seat, Skoda, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce.

The single biggest VW shareholder is the government of Lower Saxony Land, with about 20% of the shares.

The Porsche family is the biggest single shareholder of Porsche, but I was not able to figure out their share yet (also, it is very likely that their share is divided through several family members).

So, RickP:Clio51, M Coupe and cybersdorf were right - Porsche is an independently-owned company. My statements were off the mark.

(well, this gives me more hope of seeing a Porsche/Bentley or Porsche/Audi/Bentley fight in Le Mans in 2004!)

Cheers,

Muzza