Founder Mate Rimac with a Rimac Nevera RImage: RimacThe end of a long-standing collaboration: After Volkswagen’s subsidiary Porsche acquired a 10 per cent stake in Rimac in 2018 and later increased it to 21 per cent, the partnership is now coming to an end—despite Porsche having contributed its prestigious Bugatti brand to a joint venture with Rimac in 2021. However, tensions had been building for some time: rumours emerged a year ago that Rimac sought to push the German sports car manufacturer out of the partnership.Whether this was truly the case or merely a diversion, the fact remains that Porsche now intends to sell its stakes in Bugatti Rimac and the parent company Rimac Group to a consortium led by the New York-based venture capital firm HOF Capital.Porsche CEO Michael Leiters explained the decision: “In setting up the joint venture Bugatti Rimac together with Rimac Group, we successfully laid the foundation for Bugatti’s future. And as an early-stage investor of Rimac Group, Porsche made a significant contribution to developing Rimac Technology into an established Tier-1 automotive technology company. Now, with the sale of our stake, we demonstrate that we will focus Porsche on the core business. We would like to thank Mate Rimac and his team for the constructive and trusting cooperation over the past years.”The buyer, HOF Capital, is backed by the Egyptian billionaire family Sawiris, which built the conglomerate Orascom starting in the 1950s. While founder Onsi Sawiris passed away five years ago, his sons and grandsons have since expanded into new business sectors and acquired further stakes. For instance, son Nassef Sawiris holds nearly 6 percent of the shares in the German sportswear giant Adidas and is a co-owner of the English Premier League club Aston Villa. Meanwhile, grandson Onsi Sawiris Jr. is a co-founder and Managing Partner of HOF Capital, the venture capital firm now acquiring Porsche’s stakes in the Rimac Group and Bugatti Rimac.The Croatian entrepreneur Mate Rimac, who grew up in Germany, founded his company in 2009 after converting an old BMW 3 Series into a battery-electric car in a garage. Over the years, Mate Rimac’s startup developed a fully electric hypercar, the Rimac Nevera, which has been produced in a limited series since 2022 and achieves a top speed of 412 km/h. In 2021, Porsche contributed its hypercar brand Bugatti to a joint venture with Rimac, in which Rimac holds a 55 per cent majority and leadership role.Today, Rimac is significantly more diversified: the Rimac Group comprises four divisions. The Bugatti Rimac division focuses on hypercars with both battery-electric (Rimac Nevera) and conventional powertrains (Bugatti). Rimac Technology serves as a Tier 1 supplier, producing components such as the battery systems for the new BMW i7. Verne develops self-developed robotaxis and operates a robotaxi service, which recently debuted in Zagreb and is set to expand to further cities in Europe and the Middle East soon. The fourth and newest division, Rimac Energy, is building a business in stationary battery storage systems.porsche.com, bugatti.com