Quote:
Originally Posted by Efthreeoh
You wrote "The i cars are a huge financial burden and a huge risk, but if the gamble pays off, it extends their time as one of very few independent car manufacturers." So now I am confused about your previous statement, what exactly did you mean?
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Well two things are at play here, BMW is one of few privately held car companies, and even including publicly held ones, there aren't exactly a ton of those, you'd have GM, Ford, Fiat, BMW, MB, VW, PSA, Hyundai, Honda and Toyota. I'm sure I'm forgetting one or two.
But let's say that BMW found themselves in financial difficulties. There are two levels of how they stand to lose their independence, by going public, but remaining essentially the same as they are now, BMW cars and motorcycles, MINI and Rolls, or by being acquired by one of the larger players, the latter being the more relevant towards this discussion.
tl;dr - in order for the Quandts to retain control of BMW, the i program needs to be successful. If it's not BMW would either need to transition to a publicly held company, or become part of a larger car company.
I'm guessing that the German appetite for investing in large ventures is slightly lower than it was a decade or more ago.