Suddenly everything is happening very quickly: After the Volkswagen Group (VW) had kept a low profile for months, the Wolfsburg-based group sent out a mandatory notification on Tuesday of this week, as reported: It confirmed that the sports car subsidiary Porsche AG was going public is to be brought. Investment bankers assume a valuation of up to 100 billion euros.
Yesterday, Friday, it was announced that VW believes the IPO could be completed by the end of the year: depending on the results of the tests that have now started, some of the preferred shares may be listed as early as the fourth quarter of 2022, said VW CFO Arno Antlitz . An interim conclusion is to be drawn in late summer.
The operational business of the sports and off-road vehicle manufacturer from Stuttgart is bundled in Porsche AG. Porsche is a key profit maker for the VW Group: the operating return on sales was 15.4 percent in 2020.
According to current plans, Porsche’s share capital is to be split half into ordinary shares and half into preferred shares. Up to a quarter of the preferred securities could then be traded publicly: based on the total amount of all shares, that would be a maximum of 12.5 percent.
More power for Porsche-Piëch
The umbrella company Porsche SE should not be confused with Porsche AG: the Porsche-Piëch family has bundled their shares in the VW group in this company. The family holds 53 percent of VW voting rights, making it the most influential shareholder in Wolfsburg. The holding would get a 25 percent stake plus one share of the voting tribes in the corporation. VW should remain the main shareholder of Porsche.
After an IPO, the owner families would have access to Porsche AG again: After a takeover battle that was lost ten years ago, it went completely to VW.
With the IPO, VW wants to secure the necessary billions for the electric offensive: The construction of the planned six new battery cell plants in Europe alone is likely to cost around 20 billion euros.
Source: Nachrichten
