May become ninth brand owned by VW if deal goes through
IT MAY BE RECALLED that last month we broke the news that Volkswagen were seriously toying with the idea of bringing Ducati under their umbrella in order to shield the Italian marque from its recent fi nancial turmoil. This is part of Project Eagle, a brainchild of Ferdinand Piech, Volkswagen Group chairman.
Piech had fi rst publicly expressed his interest in buying Ducati back in 2008, but lost the opportunity to current owners, Investindustrial. Should it become a reality now, Ducati would become the ninth brand owned by the VW Group, which also owns Bentley, Audi, Skoda and Lamborghini, among others. Having a premium two-wheeler brand in its portfolio will bring the VW Group at par with arch-rivals, BMW, who own the popular BMW Motorrad brand of bikes.
Other suitors include Hero MotoCorp and Daimler, but Volkswagen’s Audi has made an exclusivity deal with Ducati and the German giant now has the right of fi rst refusal on a purchase until mid-April. The automobile major’s fi nancial advisory board are crunching numbers and will most probably offer anywhere between Rs 300 and Rs 600 crore and absorb Ducati’s burden of debt.
