Porsche’s stake in Rimac increases from 15.5 percent to 24 percent
While corporate stories can be boring, I will admit that they aren’t always the most interesting. However, we have been watching Porsche and Rimac to see if great things might result from this tie-up. The Zuffenhausen peeps acquired a 10 percent minority stake in the Croatian electric supercar brand in June 2018. The percentage rose to 15.5 percent in September 2019 and is now at 24 percent.
Porsche will invest an additional EUR70M (or $83.2M at current exchange rate), and points out that owning 24 per cent of the shares does NOT grant it any control. Rimac still has the final say in its future. Porsche has interestingly mentioned in a press release that it is working with the C_Two to become a Tier 1 supplier, which means future models of the German marque will be equipped with EV-related hardware from Rimac.
Rumours had circulated that Porsche would increase its stake to 50 percent. However, it appears that this is not the case. As many reports speculate, Rimac could take over Bugatti in return for Porsche’s additional shares. However, it is not clear what will happen to Bugatti .
It is a fact that Bugatti’s parent company Volkswagen Group will make the decision in the first half year. Oliver Blume, Porsche CEO, and member of management board of parent Volkswagen AG suggested recently that Rimac could play an important role regarding Bugatti’s future. If the deal is done, it’s possible that we will see fully-electric Bugatti hypercars using Rimac’s expertise. This would be in addition to electrified Porsche models which Mate Rimac and his team were able to create in a very short time.
Rimac was established in 2009 near Zagreb. It is now months or weeks away from introducing its highly anticipated C_Two production model. With over 1,900 horsepower, the quad-motor electric hypercar will be renamed and can reach 60 mph in under two seconds. Out of 150 vehicles produced, the first year has already seen sales.