Few companies can take a €25bn hit after enduring a well-publicised scandal, and just two years later achieve a record performance. But Volkswagen can, and amid expectations for record car sales its financial services division in December said it expected to grow contracts by 8% in 2017, with profits significantly higher.
Two-thousand and seventeen also marked a committed return to the capital markets by the auto maker, after a low-profile period following a scandal in which the company admitted it had gamed emissions testing. Various units of the company made successful forays over the course of the year, finishing with Volkswagen Bank (VW Bank), which was newly separated from the firm’s financial division. It was the division’s first bond sale since 2014.
