Porsche has been in the news quite a bit over the past few weeks. While one hand is embroiled in an emissions tax battle with the Mayor of London, the other hand is slowly scooping up shares of Volkswagen.
In related news, Porsche Chairman Wolfgang Porsche was nominated today to the Volkswagen supervisory board. This move may help fuel the fire that Porsche is aggressively pursuing a larger piece of Volkswagen than it publicly admits, but VW's board is astute. When it added Porsche to the Board, it also invited Lower Saxony Prime Minister Christian Wulff and his finance minister back for another term. Lower Saxony is the second largest shareholder at Volkswagen these days. With 82,000 VW jobs in their state, the region's veto power is significant to all involved, especially Porsche, which would have to square off against Lower Saxony's veto vote in a bid to fully take control of Volkswagen.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ckm @ Mar 13th 2008 2:43PM
They already own the majority (51%), so it doesn't seem like they would need any more than that. Many organizations control companies with far less equity....
Chris.
rgseidl @ Mar 13th 2008 5:45PM
(a) while Porsche Automobil Holding SE, Porsche AG's parent, does hold 31% today and has applied for regulatory permission in the EU plus 15 non-European countries to increase that to 51%, the shares have not actually been purchased yet. Porsche does hold options and has secured a line of credit.
(b) the German justice minister is currently drafting an amendment to the infamous "Lex VW" to comply with a recent EU court ruling that invalidated major portions of it. One provision that the court criticized but did not strike down was the blocking majority of just 20%, which gives the state of Lower Saxony a lot of clout. Normally, 25% of outstanding shares are required. The EU competition commissioner has already indicated she will file another lawsuit against Germany if the amendment does not bring the percentage required for a blocking vote in line with common practice.
993C4S @ Mar 13th 2008 5:49PM
In Germany, there is something called a "domination and profit transfer agreement". This scheme usually requires owning a minimum of 75% of the company.
If Porsche were to purchase more shares and gain the 75% + needed, they would then have control of VW's cash-flow which would be economically beneficial to Porsche (to say the least).
RLQ @ Mar 13th 2008 4:49PM
Bring back the rear engine Bug.
zamafir @ Mar 13th 2008 5:02PM
um. they are. but it won't be the bug, it will be the new lupo, look for it in 2010.
jim @ Mar 13th 2008 10:49PM
They already have, it's called 911.