One of the first meetings, scheduled for today, was supposed to give the two a chance to sketch the plans for a tie-up. It is uncertain at this point whether the meeting will still take place.
"We recognized at the end of the week that Porsche is lacking several fundamental conditions for the discussions," a Volkswagen spokesman was quoted as saying by the source. Porsche does not have a strategy for the targeted integration and has to figure out on its own what the next course of action will be, added the spokesman.
Porsche is not caught in between the rock and the very hard place. On one side, the debts the company has accumulated and on the other the prospects of a company lead by VW. A Volkswagen led future group becomes more and more of a possibility, as Martin Winterkorn, VW's CEO, is backed by the prime minister of Lower Saxony.
Ferdinand Piech, the man who can be considered as the father of the future VW lead group and a outspoken supporter of Winterkorn, place additional pressure on Porsche by saying that Wendelin Wiedeking, Porsche's chief, will not be happy to take on a lesser role within the new company.
On the less official side of the story, rumors claim that Porsche has put its sports car business on the table, so that VW could take it and clear Porsche of its financial troubles.
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