Word: piech
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...players in the feud are Ferdinand Piech and Wolfgang Porsche, both of them grandsons of the visionary automotive engineer Ferdinand Porsche, who invented both Porsche and VW back in the 1930s. Wolfgang Porsche is chairman of Porsche, while his cousin Piech is chairman...
...Porsche announced the U-turn late on Wednesday after a series of intense meetings between Wolfgang Porsche and Ferdinand Piech, the patriarchs of the families that control the two iconic German companies. Now, VW and Porsche will enter weeks of intense talks to thrash out the final structure of a merger that will add Porsche as a tenth brand to VW's stable, which already includes Audi, Bentley and Czech manufacturer Skoda, as well as the VW brand. (See the 50 worst cars of all time...
...Porsche's biggest obstacle was Piech, whose grandfather designed the iconic VW Beetle and also created the foundations of the Porsche brand. Piech has long had ambitions of bringing Porsche under VW's roof and has been working for years to build VW into the world's leading car company. VW sold 6.27 million cars last year, and Piech, VW execs have said, has his sights set on overtaking Toyota, which sold 8.9 million cars, and GM, which sold 8.35 million. (See pictures of a brief history of Pontiac...
...Unable to force Piech to give in, Porsche seems to have just run out of time. Its gambit to acquire VW cost Porsche dearly as it piled up a $12 billion mountain of debt to finance stock purchases. With the sports carmaker beginning to struggle under the weight of that debt, Porsche and Piech met in Salzburg, Austria on Wednesday to end the feud. Following that meeting, Porsche issued a statement declaring that the two companies aimed to "develop a corresponding basis for decision-making on the future structure of the common group...
...charge of revving up Volkswagen is CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder, who took over from the domineering Ferdinand Piech in April 2002. A personable, goateed man who ran BMW from 1993 to 1999, Pischetsrieder, 55, is pursuing a risky sales strategy inherited from Piech: pushing his flagship brand into the U.S. luxury arena, where vehicle profit margins are higher than in the mid-priced segment in which VW typically competes. At the same time, he is wringing costs out of manufacturing through design changes and by getting relief from VW's expensive German work force. The firm recently announced that net profit...