Porsche sells its entire stake in Bugatti Rimac

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No longer access to unlimited funds?

Shocking news, indeed, but for those who have been following Porsche closely, this may not be all that surprising. But anyway, when Bugatti-Rimac was officially announced just over 4 years ago, it seemed more like VW Group wanted to take control of Rimac via owning a stake in Rimac Group (parent of Bugatti-Rimac) rather than handing over control of the Bugatti brand to Rimac. But now, for whatever reason, Porsche has decided to sell its entire stake not only in Bugatti-Rimac, but also its entire stake in Rimac Group, to a consortium led by HOF Capital.

The aforementioned consortium includes BlueFive Capital as well as a group of institutional investors across the US and EU. Post regulatory clearances, Porsche will offload its 45% stake in Bugatti-Rimac and 20.6% stake in Rimac Group to said investors. HOF Capital will be the largest shareholder of Rimac Group alongside Mate Rimac, founder of Rimac and CEO of Bugatti Rimac. And, apparently, the parties have agreed to keep the financial terms of the transaction confidential, except where disclosure is required under applicable financial reporting obligations.

With that, VW Group’s ownership of the Bugatti brand has come to an end after nearly 3 decades. VW Group acquired the brand in December 1998 from Italian businessman Romano Artioli. It was under VW ownership that Bugatti became well known not just for models such as the Veyron and Chiron, but those models setting top-speed records. Under VW, the brand had sorta-kinda unlimited access to money, but now, it appears that any new model decision requires the approval of a whole bunch of new investors. 

But anyway, Dr Michael Leiters, CEO of Porsche AG, had the following to say:

In setting up the joint venture Bugatti Rimac together with Rimac Group, we successfully laid the foundation for Bugatti’s future. As an early-stage investor of Rimac Group, Porsche made a significant contribution to developing Rimac Technology into an established Tier-1 automotive technology company. Now, with the sale of our stake, we demonstrate that we will focus Porsche on the core business. We would like to thank Mate Rimac and his team for the constructive and trusting cooperation over the past years.