Volkswagen’s majority owner urged Europe’s biggest carmaker to move quickly on cutting costs and excess capacity to tackle a slide in competitiveness.
VW should consider “every option” to usher in a turnaround, Porsche Automobil Holding SE said Friday, its strongest plea yet for swift change at the owner of the Audi and Seat brands.
The holding company controlled by the Porsche-Piëch owner family added that it fully backs the VW management’s proposals, which include cutting tens of thousands of jobs.
Volkswagen “is at a historic crossroads,” Porsche SE Management Board Chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch, who also heads VW’s supervisory board, said in a statement.
“The longer decisions are delayed, the bigger the problems will become.”
The 75-year-old Austrian has weathered a number of setbacks since he joined VW more than two decades ago.
His counsel to the billionaire owner’s family and deep corporate ties have helped the group work through conflicts and crises, including the diesel-cheating scandal.
Volkswagen Chief Executive Officer Oliver Blume is trying to make the automaker faster and leaner after years of software delays, bloated costs and declining profitability.
But his room to maneuver has narrowed after the supervisory board, where unions hold powerful sway, last month pushed back against plans to shutter four German factories and axe as many as 100,000 jobs.
Blume is instead planning to slash annual production capacity in Europe by another 500,000 units, thin managerial and administrative positions, and make sweeping cuts to model and equipment variants.
Negotiations on the exact nature of the measures are still ongoing.
Porsche SE, the listed entity that controls the major assets of the Porsche-Piëch clan, on Friday reported a first-half loss after tax of €2.22 billion (R42.11 billion).
The family relies on steady dividend payments, which have come under pressure amid declining profits at VW and sports-car maker Porsche.
Both are grappling with waning sales in China and rising competition in Europe from new entrants led by BYD.
VW’s underused plants and a 30% cost gap to some competitors mean it needs to cut overhead expenses by at least €10 billion, the carmaker said last month.
With shareholder payouts falling, the holding company has been trying to diversify away from automaking.
It’s set up a fund to make defence-industry investments and bought stakes in companies including German rocket startup Isar Aerospace and drone maker Quantum Systems.
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