Porsche family patriarch Ferdinand Piech seems driven by a familial obligation to reunite the businesses that arose from the genius of his grandfather, Ferdinand Porsche, but were scattered in the back draft of World War II, the Marshall Plan and economic codetermination.
The 69-year-old Piech is chairman of the supervisory board of Volkswagen and head of the family that controls Porsche AG, which owns more than 20 percent of Volkswagen. That means he's in the perfect position to reclaim the empire -- which ultimately would include Porsche, Volkswagen AG and a semiautonomous Audi -- so that as his legacy he can leave it in the able hands of the family's next generation.
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