An Odd Coupling

Here’s an informative article in BusinessWeek discussing new developments at VW and Porsche. Many of you may not know that the Volkswagen brand actually has Porsche roots. That’s right, Ferdinand Porsche designed the vehicle that would eventually become the VW bug. This part of VW’s history is interesting (and historically relevant), not least because this week a European court handed down a ruling that would allow Porsche to greatly increase its stake in VW, which is now Europe’s largest automaker. Porsche already owns over 30% of VW, but an arcane German law commonly known as "the Volkswagen law" protected the company from takeovers and prevented Porsche from exercising its full voting rights. The recent ruling paves the way for Porsche to increase its shares, fully exercise its voting rights and literally takeover the company.

No worries here, though. The change will likely have no effect on current owners or potential buyers.