The Board Meets: Volkswagen To Swallow All Of Porsche Officially This Year?
Suddenly, everybody is in a big hurry: On February 14, the Supervisory Board Volkswagen’s supervisory board will convene to hear plans to acquire the remaining stake of Porsche’s sports car business, Der Spiegel [sub] reports. The deal is supposed to happen in a tax-efficient manner. It also drives plaintiffs mad.
According to Der Spiegel, Volkswagen will have to pay €3.9 billion ($5.1 billion) plus taxes for the 50.1 percent stake. Add to that a “low three-digit million” amount in taxes. There are people who don’t like that deal at all.
Those people are international funds that sued Porsche and Volkswagen for more than €5 billion. They felt duped after getting caught in a monster short squeeze. On the Porsche side, the suits are against Porsche SE, a holding company that owns Porsche AG.
“If Porsche gets ransacked, we need to react,” Munich lawyer Franz Braun told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. He is worried that Volkswagen makes off with the juiciest assets, leaving a hollowed-out holding behind. He wants to get a temporary injunction that stops the sale. Volkswagen told the paper that this is “lawyerly nonsense.” The holding will have plenty assets, Volkswagen argues. It gets billions from Volkswagen and keeps owning 50.7 percent of Volkswagen.
Volkswagen could officially swallow Porsche this year.
Stay tuned.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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I can't wait to buy my first rear-engine, rear-drive VW New Karmann Ghia built from a de-bloated 911.
Well, in America, the plaintiffs' lawyers get horse heads in their beds as an inducement to quietly wrap things up. What's the Swabian method?