Hück: We Will Fight "to the utmost" for the Autonomy of Porsche

STUTTGART, GERMANY – July 16, 2009: The Group Works Council of Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, Stuttgart, will fight “to the utmost” to keep Porsche autonomous. This was announced by the Chairman of the Porsche AG Group Works Council, Uwe Hück, on Wednesday at an employee meeting in Weissach. At the same time he called upon the owner families Porsche and Piëch to keep their promise – given most recently in May 2009 – that Porsche is not for sale. In this context he also repeated a quote by Dr. Ferdinand Piëch from the Porsche 1993 Annual General Meeting, at which he said: “Porsche will be independent for as long as I live.“

Hück spoke in favor of the entry of an outside investor at Porsche, for which, he stated, the company’s management board had developed a workable concept. He expects the Porsche and Piëch families to participate in any capital increase, in order to strengthen Porsche’s financial basis. The Group Works Council began collecting signatures from Porsche employees in the morning for a resolution that will be presented to the family shareholders.

In this resolution the staff call upon the Porsche and Piëch families to, “keep their promise and guarantee the legal and economic autonomy and independence of the Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG company and the Porsche brand and to implement a capital increase and bring in an outside investor.“

The Group Works Council Chairman also pointed out that a sale of Porsche AG to Volkswagen would harm the VW company as well, because VW itself needs its liquidity. “Entry by VW would ultimately bring harm to both workforces.” This would be simply irresponsible in times of the current economic crisis.

Hück vehemently responded to the attacks by Lower Saxony’s Minister President Christian Wulff. Hück stated that Minister President Wulff was trying to harm Porsche in order to ultimately be able to take over the company at a lower price and was thus willing to risk endangering jobs. Hück called upon Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Baden-Württemberg Minister President Günther Oettinger to “put Wulff in his place.”