The depths of despair that the Dieselgate scandal has inflicted on Volkswagen has forced the German auto giant to make tough decisions just to be able to keep its business upright. Fortunately, Volkswagen hasn’t reached the point of actually being forced to sell some of its companies, including Bentley and Bugatti. While there have been rumors that both brands could be let go in the wake of the diesel emissions scandal, Porsche CEO Oliver Blume doused those rumors as far as both brands are concerned.

Speaking with Reuters, Blume shot down any thought of a possible sale even as speculation rises that either Bentley or Bugatti could be on the chopping block. Apparently, Blume claims that there are “no considerations to sell anything.” More importantly, Porsche and Bentley have had a lot of success in cross-brand collaborations so selling Bentley in order to keep its numbers afloat doesn’t make any sense. Then again, with Bentley and Bugatti appearing safe from the seller’s block, other brands don’t appear to be as lucky. Italian motorcycle brand Ducati has been a name that’s being thrown out as a possible candidate to be sold to help generate enough money to fund Volkswagen’s new business strategies moving forward.

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The sign of the times aren’t promising for Volkswagen

Fans of Bentley and Bugatti can rest easy, at least for now.

While it is reassuring to hear somebody like Porsche CEO Oliver Blume shoot down rumors of a possible sale for either of the two luxury brands, it’s still going to be interesting to see how this story evolves from here. The truth is that while there’s still a lot of prestige tied into both Bentley and Bugatti, both brands aren’t doing as well as Volkswagen AG needs them to.

Global sales of Bentley models dropped in 2016 after posting strong sales numbers in 2015. A lot of reasons have been attributed to this, but one of the biggest factors have been the stagnating sales in China, considered as one of the company’s biggest markets in the world. All things considered, Bentley isn’t doing well enough to remain on solid footing within the company, especially when compared to other Volkswagen-owned brands like Porsche and Audi. That’s partly due to Bentley having a smaller market altogether, but the drop in sales isn’t a good sign for the company.

Then there’s Bugatti, which infamously admitted that it actually lost money from each of the Veyrons it sold. The company – and Volkswagen by extension – took the bullet then considering how much of a pioneer the Veyron turned out to be. Nobody within Volkswagen AG batted an eyelash because it had an iconic car worth the money it was bleeding out for the mothership. Add that to the fact that Volkswagen AG was in a much better financial place during the Veyron’s run and it’s easy to understand why the parent company was more than willing to showcase the Veyron as a show of engineering force rather than an actual moneymaker. But things have changed for Volkswagen AG. The fallout from the Dieselgate scandal isn’t going to end anytime soon. And while Bugatti now says that it plans to make money from the Chiron supercar, the cost of doing business in that segment could hamper Volkswagen AG’s plan of getting out of the scandal as soon as possible.

So even with Blume saying that both brands aren’t for sale, it’s probably best to consider this situation as fluid. Things could still change depending on how both brands fare this year. The rumored sale of Ducati may have given life to the supposed status of Bentley and Bugatti, but rest assured, until Volkswagen AG can safely say that it’s free from the burden of the Dieselgate scandal, all possible scenarios are still in play. That could include Bentley and/or Bugatti finding new owners.