Audi has announced that it is acquiring Ducati from Invest industrial Group, with the deal reportedly set to cost 860 million euros. The Italian motorcycle marque is set to join the Vokswagen empire as the 12th brand under its portfolio.
It will be the third Italian brand under the VW fold – Lamborghini and Italdesign being the others, with the purchase bringing along the Italian company’s expertise on design and light engines. The transaction will be completed as quickly as possible once authorised by the competition authorities.
The acquisition price is certainly higher than that originally bandied about earlier, but cements a move on to the two-wheeled path for the group, which VW chairman Ferdinand Piech apparently wants to pursue. It will also allow VW to take on BMW on the bike front.
In 2011, Ducati sold around 42,000 motorcycles and generated revenue of some 480 million euros, and employs around 1,100 staff. Its racing activities are currently focused on the Ducati official factory team in the MotoGP class of the Motorcycle World Championship and in the Superbike World Championship, supporting competitive private teams.
Dont spoil the Ducati and then sell it at €1…
helo. its volkswagen…not Plotong ok…
Big company also can spoilt other company, look at Rover after BMW take over sold it at £10 then becoming MG Rover
went proton bought mv agusta its already spoilt heavily in debt…ducati its another story
i want audi/vw car with ducati engine !!!!!!!
ducati has a patented technology on its valve actuator. it has no springs. so less loading and the engine pick-up revs so fast, its as good as pneumatic valve system.
with the purchase of ducati, such technology may appear in VW / audi cars.
and there maybe a conflict over here in malaysia since the official distributor for ducati is Naza but franchise holder for audi is DRB.
indirectly, DRB is boss to naza?? i like to think that way
The Patent expired long time ago already.
The Mercedes 300SL from 1954 already used a springless valvedrive similarly to Ducati’s ‘Desmodromik’. It never made it into mass production (the 300SL was only build in small numbers) due to high maintenance costs.
BTW: Ducati’s ‘Desmodromik’ was necessary decades ago to reach high rpm’s. With todays materials and manufacturing tolerances it wouldn’t be necessary at all. But ‘Desmodromik’ belongs to Ducati as the big V2 engine belongs to Harley-Davidson.
alldisc is right.. many a time.. car companies have gone to motorbike guys for technology.. many of todays high performance tech found on cars appeared on bikes first. if there are any car enthusiasts here.. they’ll know a very iconic range of toyota performance engines all had design input from Yamaha…
in a way.. proton had the same intentions.. just that the implementation was poor.
Don’t agree. I don’t think DRB can tell Audi how to manage Ducati. Audi is still the boss, DRB is just another distributor. Unless DRB got big % stake hold in Audi..
in malaysia, hyundai with sime darby kia with naza therefore hyundai and kia under one roof nothing problem why you pening2….
Bugatti???
why ducati wants to sell the company to Audi…internal problem? They sense future losses?
Whatever it is, I do hope that DRB would discuss with VW and open up an assembly plant for Ducati here in our own soil. Hopefully that would bring down the price and spurs the local industry. At least we can put to good use of MODENAS plant…
That shows how incapable Proton is in managing other companies and turn into profit. Truth to be told, I was very shocked, surprised, sad and angry that they sold Augusta for 1. I reckon that the red tape is too serious within proton.. Own brand still can’t manage well, how to manage other brand? Hope lotus won’t suffer the same fate as augusta
A better bargain than facebook purchasing Instagram :D
BMW beware!!