Porsche Increases VW Stake

Wednesday 17th September 2008
German sportscar manufacturer takes greater control of Volkswagen


Porsche
has tightened its grip on VW by acquiring a further 4.89% stake in the
company. The sportscar manufacturer now has a 35.14% stake in VW and
has a lasting majority at the VW annual general meeting.
Dr. Wendelin Wiedeking, Chief Executive Officer of Porsche, said:
‘Our goal continues to be to increase our stake in Volkswagen to more
than 50 per cent. Today’s step is a further milestone along this road.’
He added: ‘We look forward to continuing and intensifying our
cooperation with the Managing Board of Volkswagen, which is based on a
spirit of mutual trust, and are hoping for a quick resolution of the
conflict between the employee representatives of Porsche and VW.’
By going above 35 per cent of the voting rights, Porsche will
acquire de facto control of the Wolfsburg-based group. As a result,
employee representatives of Volkswagen will now take seats in the Works
Council of Porsche SE and the Supervisory Board of Porsche SE. As a
result of the new shareholder structure, Porsche is required by law to
submit a formal mandatory offer for the VW subsidiary Audi AG,
Ingolstadt.
The relevant offer documents must be filed with the German Federal
Agency for Financial Services Supervision within the next four weeks.
This formality is a statutory requirement and has no effect whatsoever
on the intentions of Porsche. Dr. Wiedeking commented: ‘We regard Audi
as an integral part of the Volkswagen group and have no interest in
removing the company from the group structure.’
In light of this, Porsche will only offer the minimum price
prescribed by law for the shares, which is expected to be about 487
Euro per Audi share. Volkswagen has stated that it will not be
accepting the offer for its 99.14 per cent of the Audi shares. In
practice, therefore, the mandatory offer only relates to a freefloat of
0.86 per cent, representing approximately 370,000 Audi shares. Based on
last Monday’s closing price, these are valued at approximately 170
million Euro.