VW’s Ducati sale efforts have hit a hitch with reports that the German firm’s supervisory board doesn’t support the idea.
For months VW has been assessing its options for selling Ducati. It asked investment group Evercore to find and assess potential sales strategies. But while there are plenty of interested suitors for Ducati, VW’s labour leaders don’t currently back the idea.
Half of the VW supervisory board is made up of employee representatives. Unless they can be persuaded to back the sale then it’s unlikely to happen. VW profits are up in the first half of the year so there’s no pressing need to sell Ducati.
What does that mean? It suggests that any potential buyer for the Italian bike firm needs to come up with a strong offer. They can forget ideas of grabbing Ducati at a bargain-basement price. It’s likely that unless bidders can at least meet VW’s 1.4 billion Euro valuation of Ducati, there will be no sale.
Shortlist drawn up
Even though the sale is in doubt, Italian reports say the shortlist of potential buyers is complete. They say there are five bidders in the running. Edizione Holding, owned by the Benetton family, is one of them. Others are Polaris Industries, owner of Indian and Investindustrial, the investment group that sold Ducati to VW in 2012. French firm PAI is another shortlisted, with investment firm Bain Capital completing the list.
If true, that means that the Indian bike companies Bajaj, Hero and the Eicher group have not made the shortlist.
Now it’s unlikely that there will be any further movement on the Ducati sale, or no-sale, until September at the earliest.