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Sunday, June 28, 2020

Volkswagen Officially Takes Complete Ownership Of Audi

The deal is worth how much?

Not everyone may have known this but the Volkswagen Group, currently the world's largest automaker, did not completely own the Audi luxury brand... until now. For decades, VW and Audi jointly developed numerous vehicles, engines, and other related automotive technologies like the upcoming Audi Q4 e-tron

and VW ID.4
but VW's ownership was not 100 percent. More precisely, it had been 99.64 percent.

According to Reuters who learned from Audi sources, the VW Group has agreed to pay a 48 percent premium to buy out Audi's minority shareholders. "Volkswagen AG announced and specified that it has set the cash settlement to be paid to the minority shareholders in return for the transfer of their shares at 1,551.53 euros per Audi AG share," the automaker confirmed.

All told, this comes to a 237 million euro (about $267 million) price tag for VW in order to bring Audi under its complete control. This share transfer will be completed at Audi's upcoming yearly general meeting later this summer. How will this affect Audi on a day-to-day basis?

The truth is, very little. Nothing will change for dealerships, customers, and Audi's home base of operations in Ingolstadt, Germany. Audi has been a reliable and stable source of income for VW over the past couple of decades and this is expected to continue. Audi has been charged (no pun intended) with leading the way

forward with electric vehicles and many related technologies.

The Audi e-tron SUV

was only the first example and later this year or early next year the Audi e-tron GT

will debut. Audi has a total of four unique EV platforms in its stable, including the MEB platform that underpins the also upcoming VW ID.4. This will become the Audi Q4 e-tron. The e-tron GT will ride on the J1 Performance Platform while the e-tron SUV and Sportback share the MLB Evo architecture. The fourth platform is called the Premium Platform Electric (PPE) and it will become the basis for a majority of its high-volume vehicle segments in the coming years.

With Audi's electric vehicle plans firmly in place thanks to more than enough platforms to work with, it's no wonder VW wanted to obtain full ownership of the brand.