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VW weighs selling motorcycle maker Ducati in asset review
Cutting out Ducati would help streamline VW’s portfolio to focus on carmaking
A Ducati Panigale V4 motorcycle. (John Keeble/Getty Images)
Key Takeaways:
- Audi CEO Gernot Döllner said Volkswagen is reviewing Ducati as part of an overhaul of 600 businesses, though no decision on a sale has been made.
- The review supports Volkswagen’s effort to streamline operations, with Ducati potentially worth about 1.25 billion euros and generating 925 million euros in revenue last year.
- Volkswagen continues evaluating Ducati’s future and Audi is also studying U.S. manufacturing options as it reshapes its global production network.
Volkswagen AG is considering offloading motorcycle manufacturer Ducati, as part of a sweeping overhaul of the German automaker’s sprawling portfolio.
The Italian brand is among the 600 out of Volkswagen’s 2,000 businesses being reviewed, Audi CEO Gernot Döllner said in an interview. The storied maker of high-performance bikes is part of VW’s Audi group.
READ MORE: Volkswagen board approves 50,000 additional job cuts
“Within the Volkswagen Group, we are committed to a disciplined, responsible portfolio management,” Döllner said. “It’s part of the evaluation process that we’ll also talk about Ducati, but nothing has been decided.”
The review comes as Audi itself is adopting a more differentiated regional product strategy. The company on Sept. 7 launched the revived A2 crossover as an electric car for Europe, to complement the full-size Q9 SUV that targets the U.S. and the Audi sub-brand in China. Audi plans to contain the added complexity by cutting engines, body styles and other variants.
“We’ve learned over the past few years that the era of the world car is over and that we need specific solutions for specific markets,” Döllner said.
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Blume
Cutting out Ducati would help streamline VW’s portfolio to focus on carmaking. The Bologna-based company, known for making “superbikes” such as the Panigale, may be worth roughly 1.25 billion euros ($1.5 billion) based on peers’ valuations, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Michael Dean.
Volkswagen is trying to slim down in an effort to make Europe’s biggest carmaker more competitive. The supervisory board last week approved a restructuring package that calls for shrinking its portfolio of businesses and holdings by roughly a third. In June, the group agreed to sell 51% of its Everllence ship-engine unit that’s expected to generate about 7.4 billion euros.
Audi acquired Ducati in 2012. The company explored selling the 100-year-old manufacturer in 2017 before abandoning the process amid opposition from German labor representatives. Ducati has since strengthened its position as one of motorcycle racing’s dominant names, winning six consecutive MotoGP constructors’ championships since 2020.
Its success has helped give the marque something of the Ferrari aura in the motorcycle world, with its fiercely loyal followers known as “Ducatisti.”
Any sale would carry particular symbolism for Volkswagen’s controlling Porsche-Piëch clan: late patriarch Ferdinand Piëch, a motorcycle enthusiast, personally championed the 2012 acquisition and later served on Ducati’s board.
Ducati also fit neatly with the engineering culture long associated with Piëch’s Volkswagen empire. These include desmodromic valves, which mechanically close as well as open, to Audi’s Quattro system and Porsche’s rear-engined 911 sports car. Its margins, though, typically fall short of the 9% target Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume wants for the group by 2030.
Ducati sells around 50,000 units a year, and generated €925 million of revenue last year and a 52 million-euro operating profit.
Separately, Döllner said Audi is still studying options to manufacture vehicles in the U.S., including using capacity at an existing Volkswagen factory or at Scout Motors’ new plant. Audi currently has no vehicle production in the country, leaving it more exposed to tariffs than BMW AG and Mercedes-Benz Group AG.
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Any move would form part of a broader reshaping of Volkswagen’s production network. Audi’s Q4 e-tron is made in Zwickau, Germany, while the Q7, Q8 and Q9 SUVs are built in Bratislava, Slovakia. Q3 production is split between Győr, Hungary and Ingolstadt.
Döllner declined to comment on potential future uses for Audi’s Neckarsulm plant after Volkswagen announced a solution for Osnabrück on Sept. 7, saying the site — which lacks secure follow-on production into the next decade — must first work through further efficiency measures.
“We have to think for the SUVs to produce at least some of them in the U.S.,” Döllner said. “But there have been no decisions taken.”
