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Volkswagen Leaders Criticized by World's Biggest Wealth Fund for Poor Decisions

The Volkswagen Group is a company controlled by the Porsche Automobil Holding SE, owned by the Porsche-Piech family. This leadership solution is not viewed with a positive perspective by the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund.
Volkswagen Group brands on flags in front of corporate headquarters 1 photo
Photo: Volkswagen
According to Yngve Slyngstad, the Chief Executive Officer of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the way Volkswagen AG is led by the Porsche-Piech family is not considerate of the small shareholders, and “cannot be a role model for Germany.”

Currently, the Porsche-Piech family are the owners of the Porsche Automobil Holding SE, which controls 50.73% of Volkswagen voting shares. However, the Porsche Automobil Holding only owns 31.5 percent of the company equity, Bloomberg notes.

Norway’s sovereign fund has its small stake in Volkswagen, holding 1.2 percent of the company’s shares. This is not the first time the fund’s officials criticized Volkswagen’s ownership structure, as the 2009 Volkswagen-Porsche takeover battle did not go unnoticed by Norway’s independent fund administrators.

The $810 billion fund from Norway is focused on ethical matters when investing in a company. If a potential company is involved in weapon production, tobacco, or any action that affects human rights or the environment in any way, the Norwegians want nothing to do with it.

Since Volkswagen has admitted to cheating to attain good results in emission testing, the company is trying to restore its image as quickly as possible. However, the German carmaker still has a long way to go, as four US States have already filed lawsuits against it, and its proposed fixes for the vehicles affected by the Dieselgate scandal have not been approved yet by government authorities.

The German company also delayed the publication of its annual results and pushed its shareholders meeting to a later date.

This decision is an unusual step and makes analysts think that Volkswagen does not yet know how bad they were affected by the Dieselgate scandal.

Another point of view explores the fact that the company is aware of the damage and is trying to control the situation before it publishes its financial figures.
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About the author: Sebastian Toma
Sebastian Toma profile photo

Sebastian's love for cars began at a young age. Little did he know that a career would emerge from this passion (and that it would not, sadly, involve being a professional racecar driver). In over fourteen years, he got behind the wheel of several hundred vehicles and in the offices of the most important car publications in his homeland.
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