Porsche on the inventory market: the final massive blow of the Porsche-Piëch household
Volkswagen Group bra. A brand with record profits, whose outrageous success fascinates all manufacturers, Porsche AG will be listed on the stock exchange before the end of 2022. The first for the brand of the Volkswagen Group, which has twelve of them. The executive board of constructors Wolfsburg gave the green light on Monday evening. And that, while the president of Volkswagen and Porsche has been the same since 1er September. Indeed, Oliver Blume, 54, retained his former position at the head of Porsche as he assumed the presidency of the Lower Saxony consortium. Temporary accumulation, time… IPO.
The launch will be held “at the end of September or at the beginning of October”, according to the announcement of Porsche AG, with the intention of “floating” part of the Porsche capital, an introduction to the public marketing of Porsche. stocks. It’s a new attempt for the company that had no luck: it actually revealed its project… on February 24, the day of the Russian army’s invasion of Ukraine.
The sports car specialist (Porsche AG) is wholly owned by the Volkswagen Group, which is controlled by a financial holding called… Porsche SE, through which the founding family of Porsche-Piëch has the absolute majority of voting rights (54%). Far ahead of the country of Lower Saxony (20%).
The capital of the Porsche AG brand is divided into 50% preferred shares, which offer an increased dividend but without voting rights, and 50% ordinary shares with voting rights. Institutional investors will be able to subscribe up to 25% of preferred shares, at an as yet undetermined price. At the same time, the Volkswagen Group approved the sale of “25% plus one share” of Porsche AG’s common stock to the controlling holding… Porsche SE. The goal: to further strengthen the control of the Porsche-Piëch family, who will suddenly hold a blocking minority in the firm originally founded as a design office by their ancestor Ferdinand Porsche in 1931.
The listing on the stock exchange should make it possible to find funds to finance the investments of the major energy transformation that is underway. 80% of the manufacturer’s vehicles will be fully electric by 2030, Oliver Blume promised. Porsche’s listing will also give a boost to the parent company’s market capitalization, which on Tuesday trailed at 85.4 billion euros, especially compared to big rival Tesla, which is worth ten times as much.
911, always brave
With a range from 60,946 (718 Cayman) to 247,900 euros (911 Turbo S Cabriolet), Porsche, for the first time, exceeded the mark of 300,000 vehicles sold (301,915) last year. A show jumping horse company (like Ferrari) even delivered 41,300 units of its first 100% electric Porsche. The brand “has a long-term ambition to achieve an operating profitability of more than 20%,” its boss Oliver Blume told investors last July.
Meanwhile, the brand aims for an excellent margin of 17-18% in 2022. One of the best in the automotive world, by far. “Strategically, operationally and financially, Porsche is perfectly armed,” summarized its CFO Lutz Meschke last March.
The Porsche brand itself was started in Gmünd, Austria in 1948 by engineer and racer Ferry Porsche, son of Ferdinand. This was the first Porsche, the 356, owned by Georges Pompidou, General De Gaulle’s prime minister and future president. By the early 1960s, 77,000 units of this model were produced. The 356 shared the architecture of the rear-engined Volkswagen Beetle, designed by Ferdinand Porsche as a “people’s car” for the Third Reich. Its replacement, the Porsche 911, born in 1963, will use the same configuration. She will become the most famous athlete in the world, which will make the company famous all over the world. Under various successive body styles, the 911 is still in the catalog! 911? Another family affair as it was designed by Ferdinand Alexander, Feri’s son.
This indispensable coupe – and convertible – almost disappeared in the 1970s, when Porsche became convinced that it needed a more modern model. But not daring to disappoint a handful of loyal fans, the brand finally decided to continue the saga. However, in the early 1990s, the crisis arrived. Porsche even came close to collapsing in the face of competition from Toyota or Nissan sports cars, which were cheaper and more reliable.
The company then had to update its plants and reinvent its industrial processes, while remaining faithful to the 911. However, Porsche would realize in the late 90s that new car concepts were necessary if it wanted to achieve the status of a major manufacturer. It will be an SUV revolution with the large Cayenne from 2002, developed together with the Volkswagen Touareg, then the smaller Macan, a cousin of the Audi Q5 from the same Volkswagen group, in 2014. Well done. The Macan and Cayenne are the best-selling models, with 88,360 and 83,000 units respectively in 2021. The 911, however, remains the company’s fourth most popular model (38,500 in 2021).
The Age of Ferdinand Piëch
The technical intertwining of Volkswagen and Porsche reflects the shareholding and management. Ferdinand Piëch – the grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, whose name he therefore bears – was the first member of the family to assume the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors of Volkswagen in 1993. Feared for his cold temper and authoritarianism, this extraordinary engineer developed Volkswagen by buying the luxury brands Bentley and Lamborghini, recreating Bugatti and taking control of the truck manufacturer Scania.
Ferdinand Piëch left the group’s board of directors in 2002 to take up the position of chairman of Volkswagen’s supervisory board. But his bouts of madness eventually upset said council. There, in 2012, he imposed his last wife Ursula – the former nanny of his children! Unfortunately for the other family shareholders or the state of Lower Saxony.
In 2015, Ferdinand Piëch will try to completely oust the chairman of the management board, Martin Winterkorn, and yet his former chairman. It will be too much. The old man, released from his relatives, will not succeed in the maneuver. Martin Winterkorn will be confirmed and Ferdinand Piëch will leave the chairmanship of the supervisory board that year. However, he will take his revenge indirectly, in September 2015. Victim of the diesel rigging scandal, Martin Winterkorn will finally have to resign and then give way to Matthias Müller, who was close to… Ferdinand Piëch. The last chairman of the management board Oliver Blume is also known to be familiar with the Porsche and Piëch shareholder families.
