You do realize that Porsche and VW flip flop ownership every few years to elude certain taxes in Germany/Europe, right? Porsche and VW take turns buying into each other for huge taxation benefits for both automakers.
With Porsche’s revelation today that it owns 35.14% of Volkswagen shares comes the news that VW is now a subsidiary of Porsche, thus ending the long slog toward Porsche ownership. Stuttgart has announced its intention to continue purchasing VW shares until it owns a 50% stake. Porsche also made an obligatory offer for Audi — under what we can only assume are really strange German business laws, the automaker also has to at least tender an offer for the VW subsidiary, though Porsche has publicly stated that they have no desire to separate Audi from VW. No word yet on when Porsche will make an offer for General Motors, but Jerry York is rumored to be on a plane to Stuttgart right now. [Automotive News,
March 3, 2008, 3:49 pm
Porsche to Buy VW
By RICHARD S. CHANGOn Monday, Porsche gained approval from its supervisory board to raise its stake in Volkswagen from 31 percent to more than 50 percent.
Porsche already owns options for VW shares — allowing it to amass a majority stake quickly — but the company said it wouldn’t go ahead with the purchase until the move was approved by European and other regulators, a process that Porsche expects to last several months.
According to the International Herald Tribune, Porsche does not plan on merging the two companies:
“Our aim is to create one of the strongest and most innovative automobile alliances in the world, which is able to measure up to the increased international competition,” Porsche’s chief executive, Wendelin Wiedeking, said after the special board vote.
Wiedeking has said that Volkswagen should compete with Toyota of Japan to be the No. 1 mass-market manufacturer — a lofty goal, given Volkswagen’s diminished presence in the United States.
Earlier in the day, VW announced that it was raising its stake in Scania, a Swedish truckmaker, to 68.6 percent.
Porsche and VW said that the two deals aren’t linked, but according to the I.H.T., “analysts noted that as the majority owner of Volkswagen, Porsche would have a greater say in how its truck operations were organized.”
July 20, 2009, 8:00 am
VW to Buy Porsche for $11.3 Billion, Report Says
By DEALBOOKFrom our colleagues at DealBook:
John MacDougall/Agence France Presse — Getty Images Wendelin Wiedeking, Porsche’s chief executive, would be replaced in a VW purchase, Der Spiegel reported.
Porsche SE’s controlling families will agree ON Thursday to accept an offer by Volkswagen to buy its sports car business Porsche AG for roughly 8 billion euros ($11.3 billion), Der Spiegel reported on Saturday.
Der Spiegel, Germany’s leading weekly magazine, wrote that the rival Porsche and Piech clans, which own 100 percent of Porsche SE votes, would approve the two-stage takeover at a supervisory board meeting on Thursday .
Volkswagen would purchase a 49.9 percent stake in Porsche AG and at a later date acquire the rest, in a deal that would create an integrated automotive group with 10 brands under the leadership of the carmaker, based in Wolfsburg.
The sale would help Porsche SE pay off most of its debt, which two sources told Reuters has ballooned to considerably more than 10 billion euros.
Der Spiegel also said the embattled chief executive of Porsche SE and AG, Wendelin Wiedeking, was negotiating a severance package that could total more than 100 million euros. In the meantime, the production chief, Michael Macht, will replace him as head of Porsche AG, the magazine reported.
On Thursday, Mr. Wiedeking rejected speculation he was about to leave the group.
I think the bigger news today is that VW bought 20% of Suzuki.
rofl