Porsche completes sale of stakes in Bugatti Rimac and Rimac Group – VW Group no longer owns French brand

It’s the end of an era as Bugatti has lost the company that brought it back from the dead. Porsche recently announced that it has completed the sale of its stake in Bugatti Rimac and Rimac Group, meaning there’s no longer an ownership link between Volkswagen Group and Bugatti, which previously existed for nearly three decades and saw the French brand and its cars become folklore.

Here’s the backstory: in 1998, the Volkswagen Group headed by then CEO Ferdinand Piëch acquired the rights to the Bugatti trademark. The German giant would go on to introduce a few concepts in the years following the acquisition before deciding on developing what would eventually become the legendary Bugatti Veyron.

The Chiron then followed, with the company posting good operating profits before it was announced in July 2021 that Volkswagen Group would restructure its ownership of Bugatti. Rimac entered the frame and a joint venture was formed where Rimac owned 55%, while Porsche would get the remaining 45% through its parent, the Volkswagen Group.

In April this year, it was revealed that a consortium led by HOF Capital would purchase Porsche’s stake in the joint venture, and this has finally materialised after receiving regulatory approvals.

Porsche says the sale of its stakes in the joint venture as well as the Rimac Group (21%) will generate proceeds of around EUR1 billion, of which 250 million from that will be used to further fund its pension obligations and help improved its net cash flow margin. Fun fact: Porsche did get something out of this joint venture, as the battery used in its first hybrid 911, the GTS T-Hybrid, is from Rimac.

Now that the deal is completed, there are some managerial changes. Mate Rimac, the founder of the company with his name on it, will assume the role of president of Bugatti Automobiles. He replaces Christophe Piochon, who steps down as president of Bugatti Automobiles and COO of Bugatti Rimac.

Meanwhile, Marko Brkljačić – former COO at Rimac Technology – will join the Bugatti Rimac leadership team as COO. Current Bugatti Automobiles managing director, Hendrik Malinowski, will be chief commercial officer of the brand.

The Bugatti Tourbillon is the first vehicle to be built during the Bugatti Rimac era and marked a pivotal moment for the brand as it is its first electrified model. Prior to its reveal, it was rumoured that the Chiron successor would be a fully electric vehicle (EV), but Rimac rejected that idea despite his company’s expertise with EVs.

The plug-in hybrid hypercar is one of the milestones that Mate Rimac set in his ten-year vision for Bugatti when the joint venture was formed in 2021, with the new La Manufacture production facility in Molsheim where the Tourbillon is built being another – it opened in July this year.

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