According to the news agency dpa, the supervisory board of audi and its parent company volkswagen are to meet late wednesday afternoon – one day after the 75th anniversary of the company’s founding. Birthday of VW patriarch ferdinand piech – signing off on the deal.
Neither VW nor audi would comment on tuesday in wolfsburg and ingolstadt and stressed that the companies do not comment on speculation. The VW group’s entry into the motorcycle business, however, has long been expected. Piech in particular was repeatedly said to be interested in ducati. VW boss martin winterkorn had not yet clearly denied the purchase intentions, but had not confirmed them either. Audi is also the mother of the italian sports car manufacturer lamborghini.
Ducati was founded in 1926 and is one of the world’s best-known motorcycle manufacturers. The financial investor investindustrial had taken over the traditional company a few years ago, when it was in crisis. Recently, investindustrial announced its intention to sell the company for up to one billion euros. The noble manufacturer made sales of a good 480 million euros in 2011 and is in the black. The italians sold around 42,000 motorcycles last year. The brand is considered the "pearl" of the industry and enjoys an excellent reputation. Nevertheless there are problems.
The two-wheeler business is considered to be quite difficult, in europe the manufacturers have already been hit hard by the recent economic crisis and, unlike their car counterparts, have barely been able to recover. The market on the continent has halved recently. The debt crisis is also unsettling consumers – and motorcycles are probably seen by many buyers as a rather expendable purchase. Many car builders have long said goodbye to the two-wheeler. In germany, BMW is currently the only carmaker to produce motorcycles.
But VW is not deterred, not least because ducati probably has technology to offer that can also be useful for car production, for example in lightweight construction or engines. Official information about the motorcycle deal was not allowed until early wednesday evening.
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