Piech's Death Spotlights The Elite's Control Of The Volkswagen Empire

The sudden death of Ferdinand Piech, who built Volkswagen Group into a global powerhouse, puts the spotlight on one of Europe's wealthiest families and the challenges it faces to navigate the tectonic shifts roiling the auto industry.

VW was always hard to handle: Its home state of Lower Saxony in Germany owns 20 percent of the Wolfsburg-based automaker and worker representatives can veto factory closures. But the situation got even more complex a decade ago, when the reclusive Porsche-Piech clan -- descendants of the VW Beetle's creator, Ferdinand Porsche -- gained control of a majority of the company's voting shares.

malba2367 - 8/28/2019 12:55:40 PM

+2 Boost

This guy was ruthless, and did a lot of shady things but his expert maneuvering around legal/government obstacles to give his family holding company control over VW should be studied by all business students.

MDarringer - 8/28/2019 7:09:38 PM

0 Boost

VW's ownership structure is the #1 thing in the way of its greatness.

TomM - 8/28/2019 8:12:28 PM

+2 Boost

Without a controlling Family and the inherent pride involved - VW would never have become what it is today.

With the controlling family - they could stroke their EGOs with the various high end players they brought into the fold - that they would not have otherwise.

The same is true of Toyota - and in some ways Ford as well.
WHen management has no clear unified ownership - the complexities of large corporations generally create bottlenecks and roadblocks that family owned businesses can just work around

skytop - 8/28/2019 10:41:17 PM

0 Boost

So what else is new?