VW Group Shareholders Demand That Bentley Becomes Profitable

It would appear that the VW Group’s main shareholders, the Piech and Porsche families, are not happy with Bentley’s financial contribution to the group.

In fact, the British luxury automaker has received an ultimatum to become profitable within the next two years, although neither Wolfgang Porsche nor Hans Michel Piech have stated what would happen should Bentley fail to meet their expectations, as reported by Automotive News Europe.

“The important thing is for every [VW Group] brand to generate a reasonable contribution margin,” said Wolfgang Porsche during an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “That is not currently the case at Bentley, and we are not satisfied.”

Meanwhile, Hans Michel Piech, another family spokesman, added that “it can only be one to two years”, while referring to the time period in which Bentley is expected to complete its turnaround and return to profitability.

Based on the latest VW Group financial report, Bentley lost no fewer than 137 million euros in the first nine months of 2018, as opposed to the small profit they gained in the same period the year before. Among the reasons why this happened were the decline of the British pound following the UK’s vote to leave the European Union, but also the slow ramp up of the new-generation Continental GT.

Moving forward, Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmark claims that his company could post a full-year profit in 2019, resulting in significant growth.