Porsche Automobil Holding SE, main shareholder in Volkswagen AG, will not argue against paying a dividend at the following VW annual shareholder meeting, according to a spokesman for the luxury carmaker.
Porsche SE is a German company owned by the Porsche and Piech families. Its members had publicly expressed to not be in favor of Volkswagen’s proposal to pay a dividend for 2015 when the brand was looking to deal with all the repercussions following its emissions test-cheating fiasco. Nonetheless, at the moment, a spokesman for Porsche SE stated that the company is looking to give a positive vote to Volkswagen’s proposal coming from its boards and asking for a small dividend. Therefore, Porsche SE had cancelled a supervisory board meeting that was previously set to discuss the issue.
The German tabloid Bild reported that Wolfgang Porsche and Hans Michel Piech stated that the dividend was not a problem anymore after Volkswagen announced earlier this week its strategy to take it to 2025. The two Volkswagen supervisory board members said for the paper that “The issue is off the table.” They added that they had argued for the lowest possible dividend to make sure Volkswagen has sufficient funds to afford its essential investments in its future development but also to deal with the emissions scandal and get back on track.
Volkswagen has recently announced its plans to turn itself into a carmaker focused on electric-mobility and also its interest into optimizing its operations for more efficiency. The “Together-Strategy 2025” includes the production of over 30 purely battery-powered EVs over the following ten years.
