Audi May Announce Ducati Acquisition Next Week

German luxury carmaker Audi is expected to announce the acquisition of iconic Italian motorcycle manufacturer by next week. The announcement may come before the annual meeting of Volkswagen's shareholders in hamburg on April 18th. Italian buyout firm Investindustrial is the major share holder of Ducati.

The acquisition could be seen as Audi's plan to fight its German rival which also has a separate motorcycle division apart from its cars. With the buying of Ducati, Volkswagen number of brands will add up to 12, the carmaker had earlier added another Italian brand Lamborghini into its portfolio in 2010. VW chairman Ferdinand Piech has been eyeing at Ducati for long for its expertise on design and light engines.

Earlier there were reports that automakers like Mercedes Benz AMG, BMW and Indian manufacturers like Mahindra, Hero MotoCorp were all in the race for buying the Italian brand which has been on sale for a while. Sources close to Volkswagen said that the German auto giant did not face any major trouble in the buying of Ducati.

However, the bid figure of the deal has not been clear, but its said that the final figure could be somewhere in between 750 million to 875 million euros. Ducati which was founded in 1926 has won 17 manufacturer's World Championship titles over the past 60 years with the 2011 World Superbike trophy being the most recent.