VW’s Preferred Shares Hover Near Yearly Lows as a 100,000-Job Overhaul Collides With a Ten-Model Product Push
Published on 08/06/2026 at 14:32 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
The arithmetic at Volkswagen has rarely looked so unforgiving. Group profit fell to €6.9 billion in 2025, a 44 percent slide from the €12.4 billion posted the prior year, while the core VW brand’s operating contribution keeps shrinking under the weight of a costly electric transition and a Porsche division that has turned from cash cow to liability. The preferred shares, trading at €76.00 on Thursday with a 0.29 percent dip on the day, sit roughly ten percent above the 52-week low of €69.20 set in early July — a level that underscores just how far investor confidence has eroded since the December peak.
The Porsche Drag and a Chinese Slowdown
The Stuttgart-based sports car maker has become the single biggest drag on the group’s income statement. Porsche AG’s operating profit collapsed to €90 million in 2025, down from €5.3 billion a year earlier, as Chinese deliveries tumbled 26 percent. Management also absorbed €2.4 billion in special charges tied to a strategic pivot and another €700 million to wind down a battery plant. Porsche SE, which holds 53.3 percent of VW’s ordinary shares and controls the group with an economic equity stake of 31.9 percent, has felt the pain directly — the sports car brand was ejected from the DAX last September.
The second quarter of 2026 brought no respite, with the earnings slide continuing and four plants now under review. The group’s shareholder structure adds another layer of complexity: Qatar holds ten percent of the shares with 17 percent of voting rights, while Lower Saxony commands 20 percent of the votes.
A Workforce in the Crosshairs
Management’s response has been blunt. A cost-cutting program could put up to 100,000 jobs worldwide at risk — roughly 15 percent of the current 657,000-strong workforce — with 50,000 positions slated to disappear by 2030. The core brand bears the brunt with 35,000 planned cuts, while Porsche accounts for 3,900. Plants in Hannover, Zwickau, Emden and Neckarsulm are all in the firing line.
The ripple effects extend beyond factory gates. Weets, a logistics firm in Emden with 560 employees that has moved parts for the local plant’s ID.4 and ID.7 production for decades, is among the suppliers bracing for impact, as is the L.I.T. shipping company in nearby Brake. Meanwhile, the executive suite is being reshuffled: sales chiefs at Audi, VW and Porsche are being replaced, and an Audi board member is slated to take over as head of North American operations.
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A Model Offensive Meets Soft EV Demand
The product pipeline is running in parallel with the cost cuts. On July 29, the group announced ten new models for the second half of the year, including the ID. Polo, hybrid versions of the Golf and an electric Tiguan. The ID. Polo launched in early 2026 at under €25,000, with the ID. Every1 — priced around €20,000 and featuring a Rivian-developed zonal electronics architecture, a 95 PS LFP battery and 250 to 300 kilometers of range — set to follow in 2027. Production will take place in Palmela, Portugal, where €270 million is being invested; the plant pauses output this week from August 17 to 23. An Audi A2 E-Tron with roughly 500 kilometers of WLTP range rounds out the lineup, arriving late 2026 or early 2027 at about €38,000.
The urgency is understandable. Core brand EV sales slipped 0.2 percent to 382,000 units in 2025, with the group total at 983,000. The first half of 2026 brought a sharper 5.8 percent decline to 438,500 units for the core brand. In China, the joint venture managed a 13.9 percent market share at the start of the year, but the broader picture remains challenging.
Legal Clouds Over the Rivian Tie-Up
Just as VW leans on its $5 billion joint venture with Rivian Automotive as a cornerstone of its electric strategy, the US Department of Justice filed charges on July 25 against two former Volkswagen engineers. The allegations center on suspected insider trading linked to the partnership, internally code-named "Project Climb," with the accused said to have traded on confidential information. The timing is awkward, to say the least, for a cooperation that VW views as critical to its technology roadmap.
Analysts Split Down the Middle
The sell-side is anything but united on the preferred shares. Berenberg reaffirmed a buy rating on July 28 with a €100.00 price target, while UBS doubled down on its sell recommendation with an €80.00 target — barely above the current price. In between, Deutsche Bank holds at €115.00, RBC Capital Markets sits at €121.00, Jefferies trimmed its target slightly to €120.00 while keeping a buy, and JPMorgan’s Jose Asumendi stayed at "Neutral" with a €110.00 target following the half-year numbers. The range, from €80 to €121, tells its own story about the uncertainty surrounding the group’s trajectory.
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Roadshow Season and a Test of Conviction
Investors will get a closer look at management’s pitch in the coming weeks. VW embarks on a Nordics roadshow across Stockholm, Helsinki and Copenhagen from August 23 to 26, followed by appearances at the Commerzbank and ODDO BHF conferences in Frankfurt in early September and the Kepler Cheuvreux autumn gathering in Paris. The group’s February reorganization of its China operations — with Hefei designated as the hub for developing local electric models under the "China Main Platform" — and June’s shareholder meeting, where executives were discharged for fiscal 2025, offer some context, but the operative questions remain unanswered.
For now, the market is watching a company trying to execute two transformations at once: a historic downsizing and a product-led revival. Whether the ten new models can offset the drag of restructuring costs and a cooling EV market is the central question hanging over the stock as it hovers near its lows.
