If you have been following the news over the last few months, we’ve been following the alleged sale of Ducati. The first time we heard the news about two months ago, it was Eicher motors owned Royal Enfield motorcycles, who were suspected to be one of the top bidders in for the Italian superbike marquee. As days went by, talks of Hero Motorcorp and Bajaj joining the race also wafted through the internet. Polaris owned Indian motorcycles, Bain Capital even Ducati’s previous owner’s the Benetton family were all said to be some of the bids front runners. This is where the story turns from odd to unusual, now, Volkswagen say that they might not sell Ducati after all. The reason being that although the management board was keen on letting go of Ducati, the supervisory board whose approval is required prior to any sale is quite against the entire idea.
Volkswagen had planned to ditch the motorcycle brand as part of their 2016 paradigm shift towards EVs, following the dieselgate emissions scandal. The 20 member supervisory board, of which half the seats are occupied by VW’s labour leaders, are of the firm standing that the move to sell Ducati doesn’t present enough in the form of financial benefits. This makes perfect sense since VW group half yearly profits, showed more in terms of percentage increase (19% or 8.9 billion Euros) than they could ever hope to make selling the motorcycle brand (Whose bids would max out 1.5 billion Euros). Speaking to Reuters, a board spokesperson said “The employee representatives on Volkswagen’s supervisory board will neither approve a sale of Ducati, nor one of Renk or MAN Diesel & Turbo. Everyone who can read the VW half-year results should know: We don’t need money and our subsidiaries are not up for grabs by bargain hunters.” A strong message indeed, but numbers do not lie, the brand stands to gain more in terms of image if they retain the brand (even at a loss) that they stand to gain monetarily if they sell it.
Word has it that Porsche and Piech families who have the 52% controlling stake in the supervisory board are also not keen on the sale. However, no official statement from the family has been made. The boards also told “interested” parties that they should be reconsidering the time they spend checking over Ducati’s books, as a sale will not happen.
