Volkswagen will decide within the next two weeks on whether it will buy insolvent assembler Karmann, chief executive Martin Winterkorn said.
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“We in Lower Saxony are very interested in preserving jobs,” Winterkorn told Reuters in Garbsen, Germany.
He declined to discuss details of a possible deal, saying he did not want to jeopardise negotiations. It could take another one or two weeks until any decisions could be made public, he said.
“Let’s discuss the topic next week, then we will know more,” he added.
Without fresh funds, Karmann, an independent contract carmaker and convertible roof-top specialist that filed for insolvency in April, will have to shut down in early November, the report noted.
VW supervisory board chairman Ferdinand Piech has again hinted that other acquisitions could follow the purchase of Porsche.
Aside from Porsche, truck maker MAN and Suzuki are “real brands” of interest to Volkswagen, Piech told Reuters at the same venue.
