There has been much speculation about the sale of Ducati by parent company Volkswagen, and now, VW’s latest statement suggests it is not keen on keeping the premium motorcycle brand under its umbrella.
While the statement does not specifically say that VW is planning to sell Ducati, it also does not confirm that the brand is not up for sale. A diplomatic response from the German brand suggests something is indeed brewing.
The Financial Times recently reported that advisers had pitched the idea of selling Ducati to Volkswagen. It wrote:
“Following the success of the Everllence auction in stoking competition between bidders, advisers are hoping that recent pitches to VW to sell crown jewels such as its motorcycle brand Ducati — an idea it explored in 2017 — or to list supercar maker Lamborghini will gain traction.”
Notably, VW recently sold Bugatti to Rimac and a consortium of investors, and given the current economic scenario, where VW is planning to cut nearly 100,000 jobs, it is likely that Ducati could be the next to leave the VW group.
Amid the speculation, RideApart reached out to VW for a comment, and the response it received was a pretty lengthy one. VW stated:
“Please understand that we do not comment on internal, confidential documents. The underlying matters will be discussed and approved in the respective committees. We will not pre-empt this process.
“It is correct that the entire automotive industry and the Volkswagen Group are undergoing a profound transformation. The Executive Board has repeatedly stated that our current business model no longer works across all brands: developing cars in Germany, producing them in Europe and exporting them to the world.
“The world has fundamentally changed in recent years. Over the past twelve months, developments have intensified. New tariffs, harder competition and stagnating – in some cases declining – markets are currently placing burdens on the company reaching tens of billions of euros per year. To remain successful under these conditions, we have to evolve. The entire Group has to become significantly more competitive. That requires a sharper focus as well as stricter discipline over costs and investment. Only in this way can we defend and consolidate our position as one of the world’s leading automotive manufacturers and continue to finance our future by our own means.
“The entire Group – including brands and subsidiaries – have to transform profoundly. To that end, the Executive Board has worked intensively over recent months on a future plan for the realignment of the company. The goal is to make the entire company more efficient and leaner and to capture technological synergy potential consistently. In particular, this applies to decision-making processes and structures – especially in the development and integration of new technologies as well as in the model portfolio for our customers.
“In the next step, this comprehensive transformation is to be implemented following the Supervisory Board’s engagement.”
The word “leaner” gives away a major clue, but we can only know for sure when an official statement about the sale of Ducati is released.