Volkswagen Group German Multinational Automotive

Volkswagen Group is a German multinational automotive manufacturing company having its headquarters in Wolfsburg, situated in North of Germany. It mainly deals in the designing, engineering, manufacturing and distributing passenger cars, commercial vehicles, motorcycles, engines and turbo machinery, and it also offers related services including financing, leasing and fleet management. It is the world’s largest motor vehicle manufacturer by 2011 unit sales and has maintained the largest share in the European markets for the last 2 decades.

Volkswagen was founded in 1937 by the Nazi trade union, the German Labour Front. Volkswagen means “The People’s Car” in German. Its current slogan is Das Auto (The Car). The first car they manufactured went on to be named Beetle. The production of the company rapidly grew in the 1950s and 1960s and in 1965 it acquired Auto Union, which subsequently produced the first post-war Audi models. Volkswagen launched a new generation of front-wheel drive vehicles in the 1970s, including the Passat, Polo and Golf; the latter became its bestseller. Volkswagen acquired a controlling stake in the Spanish carmaker SEAT in 1986, making it the first non-German marque of the company, and acquired control of Skoda in 1994, of Bentley, Lamborghini and Bugatti in 1998 and of Porsche in 2012.

Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft is a public company and has a primary listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, where it is a constituent of the DAX index, and secondary listings on the London Stock Exchange, Luxembourg Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange and SIX Swiss Exchange. As of September 2012 20% of the voting rights by the State of Lower Saxony

a. VISION & MISSION:

Vision: “SHAPING THE FUTURE OF MOBILITY”

Mission: The route has been mapped out, the strategy finalized: “Our aim is to make the Volkswagen Group the leading automaker by 2018 – economically and ecologically.”

b. BRAND:

The Volkswagen Group comprises of the following brands as passenger cars:

VOLKSWAGEN

AUDI

BENTLEY

BUGATTI

LAMBORGHINI

PORSCHE

SEAT

SKODA

The Volkswagen Group comprises of the following brand as Motorcycles:

Ducati

Commercial vehicles are branded under the names:

VOLKSWAGEN

MAN

SCANIA

2. COMPANY STRUCTURE

OUTLINE OF THE LEGAL STRUCTURE OF THE GROUP

Volkswagen AG is the parent company of the Volkswagen Group. It develops vehicles and components for the Group, but also produces and sells vehicles, in particular Volkswagen brand passenger cars and commercial vehicles. In its function as parent company, Volkswagen AG holds interests in AUDI AG, SEAT S.A., Volkswagen Financial Services AG and numerous other companies in Germany and abroad. An overview of the significant Group companies can be found in the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements.

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The Volkswagen AG Board of Management is the ultimate body responsible for managing the Group. The Supervisory Board appoints, monitors and advises the Board of Management and is consulted directly on decisions that are of fundamental significance for the Company.

Information on the remuneration structure for the Board of Management and the Supervisory Board can be found in the Remuneration Report, in the Notes to the Volkswagen Consolidated Financial Statements and in the Notes to the Annual Financial Statements of Volkswagen AG.

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE GROUP

Volkswagen AG and the Volkswagen Group are managed by the Volkswagen AG Board of Management in accordance with the Volkswagen AG Articles of Association and the rules of procedure for the Volkswagen AG Board of Management issued by the Supervisory Board. Within the framework laid down by law, the Group Board of Management ensures that Group interests are taken into account in decisions relating to the Group’s brands and companies. This body consists of Board members and selected top managers with Group management functions.

Each brand in the Volkswagen Group is managed by a senior brand manager. The Group targets and requirements lay down by the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG or the Group Board of Management must be complied with in accordance with the applicable legal framework. Matters that are of importance to the Group as a whole are submitted to the Group Board of Management for approval. The rights and obligations of the statutory supervisory bodies of the relevant brand companies remain unaffected.

The companies of the Volkswagen Group are managed separately by their respective managements. In addition to the interests of their own companies, each individual company management takes into account the interests of the Group and of individual brands in accordance with the framework laid down by law.

SHAREHOLDER STRUCTURE:

Number of outstanding shares (as at December 31, 2011)

Preference shares

Ordinary shares

170,142,778

295,089,817

sTRUCTURE.jpg

Current voting rights distribution (as at December 31, 2011)

50.73%

2.37%

20.00%

17.00%

9.90%

Porsche Automobil Holding SE, Stuttgart

Porsche GmbH, Salzburg

State of Lower Saxony, Hanover

Qatar Holding

Others

3. COMPANY BUSINESS SEGMENTS:

The Volkswagen Group is divided in different segments viz. passenger cars, commercial vehicles, motorcycles, engines and turbo machinery. It basically/mainly functions more in the passenger cars, commercial vehicles and motorcycles divisions more. So the main focus will be on these three divisions.

1. PASSENGER CARS:

The Volkswagen Group manufactures passenger cars using the following brand names:

Volkswagen

Audi

Bentley

Bugatti

Lamborghini

Porsche

Seat

Skoda

Each of the following is discussed in brief as follows:

1. VOLKSWAGEN:

Volkswagen_logo.jpg

Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer and the original and biggest-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group. It has three cars in the top 10 list of best-selling cars of all time compiled by the website 24/7 Wall St: the Volkswagen Golf, the Volkswagen Beetle, and the Volkswagen Passat. With these three cars, Volkswagen has the most cars of any automobile manufacturer in the lists that are still being manufactured. The cars manufactured under brand name Volkswagen include the following:

Passat

Jetta

Polo

Vento

Beetle

Golf

Mini Cooper, etc.

2. AUDI:

AUDI.jpg

The name AUDI is based upon the surname of the founder of the company Mr. August Horch. “Horch” meaning “listen”, becomes AUDI when translated to Latin. The four rings of the Audi logo each represent one of four car companies that banded together to create the company. Audi’s slogan is “Vorsprung durch Technik”, meaning “Advancement through Technology”. Recently in the United States, Audi has updated the slogan to “Truth in Engineering”. It was established on the 14th day of November in the year 1899 in the Ehrenfeld district of Koln. The cars manufactured under the AUDI brand name include the following:

Q series

A series

R series

S Series

AUDI TT, etc.

3. BENTLEY:

Bentley.jpg

Bentley Motors Limited is a British manufacturer of luxury automobiles founded on 18 January 1919 by W. O. Bentley. Bentley had been previously known for his range of rotary aero-engines in World War I, the most famous being the Bentley BR1 as used in later versions of the Sopwith Camel. After the war, W. O. Bentley designed and made production cars that won the24 hours of Le Mans in 1924 and following models which repeated those successes each June 1927, 1928, 1929 and 1930.

Purchased by Rolls-Royce in 1931, when production was moved from London to Derby and later to Crewe, this business has been owned by the Volkswagen Group of Germany since 1998. The business is still based in Crewe, Cheshire, England with their Central Production Facilities there. The cars manufactured under the brand name of Bentley include:

Mulsanne

Continental Flying Spur

EXP 9 F Concept

Continental Supersports

Continental GT

Continental GT Convertible

Continental GT Speed, etc.