The Emirate of Qatar owns about 17 percent of Volkswagen‘s shares, making it the company’s third-largest investor, after the Porsche/Piech families, and the State of Lower Saxony. Qatar holds two of the 10 seats offered on the capital side of Volkswagen’s Supervisory Board. However, the fascinating choices are being made in the board’s guiding committee, which’s where the Qataris have neither seat, nor voice. Qatar wants to be admitted to that exclusive men’s club, but discovered little enthusiasm for its desires. Officially, the matter is not pertinent, because none of the 6 seats in the guiding committee are being abandoned. Unofficially, the choice to keep the Qataris at arm’s length has actually been made, with among the most threadbare arguments possible.
“The Arabs are in a huff due to the fact that they didn’t get a seat in the steering committee,” says a reputable Wolfsburg source in the upper reaches of the business’s management. “Apparently, because nobody wants to speak English at the conferences. There goes Volkswagen, the worldwide player,” the acerbic executive included.
Last Monday, Reuters reported that miffed Qatar wants to minimize its European financial investment, and to put its money into US and Asian funds. Qatar lost billions through the dieselgate scandal. On the other hand, activist hedge fund TCI Fund Management has secured in between 2 and 3% of Volkswagen AG’s preferred. The fund quickly put the money where its big mouth is, and blasted the charitable payments to Volkswagen’s Board of Management: “Shockingly, in a 6 year duration, the 9 members of the Board of Management will have been paid around EUR 400 million,” a letter sent by TCI to the board stated. “That is business excess on an impressive scale.”
The timeline of the letter might not be better, or worse: Volkswagen’s rank and file is close to mutiny, informants in Wolfsburg say, after the board made no counter offer to the metal employee union’s need for pay raises. A couple of days earlier, mad unions got up and went out of a meeting with management. “Volkswagen has actually put nothing on the table, and we are hopping mad,” union boss Hartmut Meine informed Wolfsburg’s home town paper.
