Sale of Porsche makes official divorce between Bugatti and Volkswagen

Bugatti has officially ended its link with the Volkswagen Group. The last thread that linked the French brand to the German conglomerate was cut on Wednesday (9), when Porsche completed the sale of its 45% stake in Bugatti Rimac, the joint venture that controls the hypersports car manufacturer.

The operation, authorized by regulators, yielded about 1 billion euros (approximately R$ 5.9 billion) to the Stuttgart automaker, which also disposed of the 20.6% it held in Rimac Group. The assets went to an international consortium led by HOF Capital, a New York manager, with BlueFive Capital, from Abu Dhabi, as the largest investor.

Why the sale takes Bugatti out of the Volkswagen

Group The connection was indirect, but it existed. Volkswagen AG holds 75.4% of the capital of Porsche AG, a stake held through Porsche Holding Stuttgart. While Porsche was a partner of Bugatti Rimac, the VW Group preserved, at the end of the chain, a slice of the French brand. Without this stake, the link disappears: Bugatti now answers only to the Rimac Group, which already owned 55% of the joint venture, and to the new investors.

No other brand of the German group bridges the gap. Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, Ducati and Porsche itself remain in Volkswagen’s portfolio; Bugatti does not.

A separation that began in 2021

Volkswagen bought the rights to Bugatti in 1998, under the command of Ferdinand Piëch, and bankrolled the resurrection of the brand with the Veyron, in 2005, and the Chiron, in 2016 — both powered by the W16 8.0 quad-turbo engine developed within the group. In November 2021, in the rearrangement that created Bugatti Rimac, the German company transferred the brand to the new company and stopped treating it as a subsidiary.

The engineering break came later. The Tourbillon, presented in 2024 as the successor to the Chiron, retired the W16 and debuted an aspirated 8.3-liter V16 engine developed in partnership with the British Cosworth, with no off-the-shelf parts from the Volkswagen Group. With the electric motors, the set reaches 1,800 hp.

For Porsche, the exit meets the strategy of concentrating the company on the core business, defended by Michael Leiters, who took the helm of the company on January 1. In August, the automaker had already sold the MHP consultancy to India’s Tata Consultancy Services. The move comes after a 2025 in which the group’s operating margin fell from 14.1% to 1.1%, pressured by tariffs in the United States, declining sales in China and the cost of realigning the electrification strategy.