VOLKSWAGEN GROUP LUXURY CAR MAJOR AUDI COULD ANNOUNCE THE DUCATI BUY WITHIN A WEEK

In what began as talk about German auto giant Volkswagen supremo Ferdinand Piech interested in Ducati years ago, could finally bear fruition as Audi seems to be all set to announce its interest in the Ducati buy next week. This announcement is expected to come before the 18th of April, the date when Volkswagen will hold a shareholders meeting in Hamburg, Germany. That said, this information continues to be shrouded in uncertainty as Audi is yet to release an official announcement regarding a possible bid for iconic Italian motorcycle maker Ducati.

While it has been true that Ducati has been on the selling block for a while now with its majority stockholder InvestIndustrial, which holds 70% of Ducati stock, announcing that it wants to off load a stake in the motorcycle maker, various rumors have been doing the rounds over the past few months. Automakers like Mercedes Benz AMG, Mahindra, BMW and even Hero MotoCorp were touted to be in the race for Ducati, only for all these manufacturers excepting Hero to come out in denial of these rumors. Now though, it seems that Audi could be on the verge of announcing a Ducati buy, as the fresh reports seem to suggest.

Audi taking over Ducati could give the German car maker a shot in the arm as the world’s leading luxury car maker, BMW, owns both a car as well as motorcycle division, with the latter being called BMW Motorrad. So, Audi could be even-stevens with BMW if it manages to take over Ducati, which comes with the formidable reputation of being the Ferrari of the motorcycle world. Apart from snob value, the Ducati buy could also give Audi the vital carbon credits as motorcycles emit much lesser tail pipe emissions than cars do. Incidentally, Audi also owns another legendary Italian brand in the form of supercar maker Lamborghini.

A week ago, there was some talk about Fiat heir Lapo Elkann wanting to bid for Ducati in case the asking price came down. According to reports, Elkann wanted the Ducati brand to stay under Italian ownership. This latest development however could change all of that as Audi could be the new owner of Ducati. After valuing Ducati at 1 billion euros, InvestIndustrial is said to have dropped the asking price to about 875 million euros. Audi is said to be offering about 750 million euros for Ducati. The final bid figure could be somewhere in between 750 million to 875 million euros.