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Ferdinand Piëch Peels Away From the Family Business

After an extended battle with his family, Ferdinand Piëch has finally acquiesced to resign from the board of Porsche Automobil Holding SE and sell off his remaining shares. At 80 years of age, leaving VW Group’s parent company was probably long overdue for Piëch, but you can’t help but wonder if the manner in which his retirement unfolded hasn’t left him bitter.

Still, with his 14.7 percent stake rumored to be worth over a billion euros, he’ll have the means to stage the most elaborate revenge any of us could possibly imagine — assuming that’s what he intends.

Piëch’s retirement is official. Porsche SE announced it Wednesday, saying “Ferdinand K. Piëch, as part of the completion of the aforementioned assignments today, has resigned from his office as member of the Supervisory Board of Porsche Automobil Holding SE with effect as of 8 December 2017.”

The road to this point has been particularly ugly and actions taken resulted in some exceptionally sour gapes among the Piëch and Porsche families. Ferdinand resigned from VW Group after losing a power struggle with his former protege, then-CEO Martin Winterkorn, that would have made even the darkest Sith Lord wince. Already from a competitive ancestry and a black sheep to boot, Piëch was infamous for being savagely competitive — allegedly saying to the rest of his family, “I am a wild boar. You are domestic pigs,” in an attempt to highlight that he was driven by conquest while they were not.

That attitude helped him develop Audi into the brand it is today and, ultimately, brought great success to VW Group as a whole. Despite making his extended family even more wealthy than they were before, Piëch took heat for “intentionally sabotaging” Porsche’s takeover of VW.

Following the public disclosure of Volkswagen’s emissions scandal, Piëch was believed to have intentionally incriminated the supervisory board and his cousin, Wolfgang Porsche, to the Brunswick state attorney’s office in Germany. He said the board had been made aware of the illegal manipulation of diesel exhaust gasses months before the official disclosure. The matter drove an even deeper wedge between Ferdinand and the rest of the family.

There is reason to believe him, too. According to Automotive News, Piëch’s self-claimed priorities were, “Volkswagen, family and money — in that order.”

Ferdinand’s departure makes room on the board for younger members of the Porsche-Piëch clan. Josef Ahorner, chairman and primary shareholder the Emarsys marketing platform, is seen as the most likely replacement for his uncle. But I’d rather see Piëch stick around and continue mixing it up with his kooky relatives.

A version of this story first appeared on thetruthaboutcars.com

The post Ferdinand Piëch Peels Away From the Family Business appeared first on VWVortex.



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