Porsche's Takeover by Vittkin

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In October 2005, Porsche acquired an 18.53% stake in the business. In July 2006, Porsche increased that ownership to more than 25%. And part of the reason this all was able to happen is there was a lot of speculation that this German Volkswagen law would be illegal under new EU regulations. Vittkin starts loading up the holding company with cheap debt in 2007 to go buy more VW shares on the market. Ultimately, $10 billion of debt that he puts on this holding company. He's got Ferdinand Pich signing off on this. Like why would Pich go along with this? Right.

Nobody’s perfect — including Porsche. Despite that phrase appearing in their famous 1983 magazine advertisement, they managed to get damn-close to the perfect luxury business (even Bernard Arnault would be jealous!). Porsche is both quality AND quantity, owning the most prestigious brand in its market, while at the same time churning out almost half a million mass-market soccer mom/dad SUVs per year. And like any good luxury brand, it’s packed with enough juicy family drama and creeping takeovers to fill a Netflix series.

Yet, behind it all lies perhaps the darkest origin story we’ve ever told on Acquired. Not only was Porsche was started by Nazis, Adolf Hitler himself was deeply involved in its early fortunes. And, following WWII, the Allies simply looked past these facts and essentially bestowed a license to generate wealth on Porsche and its owners — setting the stage for them to become one of the top ~15 wealthiest families in the world today.

Joining us to explore it all is perhaps the very most-qualified person in the person in the world: the one & only Doug DeMuro. Not only is Doug the largest independent car reviewer on YouTube with millions of subscribers (we’re HUGE fans), he previously worked at Porsche corporate and owns a legendary Porsche Carrera GT — which served as the recording backdrop for this episode. Make sure you tune in to watch the video version! :)

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