Porsche Does It Again: More Profits Than Sales. Obscenely More
Porsche presented the numbers for the first half of their fiscal 2008/2009. There is bad news and there is pornographic news, says Automobilwoche [sub]. The bad news is that Porsche is not immune against carmageddon: Their unit sales dropped 27 percent to 34K slot cars. In Euros, their sales dropped 12.8 percent to €3B.
Now for the pornographic part. On sales of €3B, Porsche reports a pre-tax profit of—hold on to whatever you can hold on to—€7.34B. In the same period last year, it was only €1.66B. How did they pull this off? You guessed it: The hedge fund with a sheet metal bending subsidiary earned €6.84B at the stock exchange, wheeling and dealing with stocks and derivatives. Why were Euro sales much better than unit sales?
Boxster sales nearly evaporated in anticipation of the new generation. The venerable 911 still continued to sell briskly; a buyer strike amongst perturbed hedge fund managers be damned.
At least Porsche can continue with impunity to focus on its core competency: options trades. As reported by the FAZ, BAFIN, not quite the German equivalent of the SEC, announced that they closed the proceedings against Porsche. “We could not find evidence of stock manipulation,” said a BAFIN spokesperson today.
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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Apparently Sargeant Schultz dropped some weight and is managing Porsche these days...
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Porsche has been screwing with stocks in relation to the hedgies, but they did it in a completely legal manner (under German law) and there's not much the hedgies can do about it.