"The major shareholders are certainly not the reason for the poor valuation of the share," Wolfgang Porsche, who leads the supervisory boards of both Porsche SE (PSHG_p.DE) and Porsche AG, told Reuters on the sidelines of the IAA car show in Munich. The Porsche and Piech families essentially control Volkswagen via their holding firm Porsche SE, which holds most of the voting rights in the Wolfsburg-based carmaker. "We have to get an even better grip on performance and costs," Porsche, 80, said, adding Volkswagen had to become more competitive. With a view to its competitors, the group could not assume that it would be able to avoid cutting costs, Porsche, who also sits on Volkswagen's supervisory board, said. Regarding the families' closely-watched succession planning, Porsche said that his nephew, Ferdinand Oliver Porsche, who also sits on the supervisory boards of Volkswagen, Porsche SE and Porsche AG, was a natural future successor were he to step down.

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Persons: Wolfgang Porsche, Ferdinand Porsche, Oliver Blume, Oliver Blume hasn't, Ferdinand Oliver Porsche, Porsche, Jan Schwartz, Christoph Steitz, Mike Harrison Organizations: Porsche, Porsche AG, Reuters, IAA, Volkswagen, Thomson Locations: MUNICH, Munich, Wolfsburg