Volkswagen (VWAGY.US) said Monday it will seek an initial public offering (IPO) of preferred shares in its sports car brand Porsche, which is expected to be one of the largest IPOs ever in Europe. Analysts said the IPO could value Porsche at as much as 85 billion euros.
Volkswagen plans to conduct an IPO in late September or early October, depending on further developments in the capital markets. The company said it will start meeting with individual investors to gauge demand and determine a price for the shares.
Back in late February, Volkswagen issued a statement saying that the company and the board of directors of Porsche Holdings had reached a framework agreement that specified that Porsche would go public independently, but that some of the decisions would continue to be supplemented subsequently and eventually move forward after the signing of the board of directors of Volkswagen and Porsche Holdings.
Publicly available information shows that Porsche is a subsidiary of Volkswagen, which completed the acquisition of 100% ownership of Porsche in 2012, and that the Porsche Piercy family, directly and indirectly, holds 53.3% of the voting rights in the entire Volkswagen. However, due to the company’s complex shareholder structure, plans for an independent listing have been slow.
For Volkswagen, the luxury car brands experienced a general increase during the epidemic, and the spin-off of Porsche at this time will provide VW with new capital to support its big push into electric vehicles, the development of new technologies such as driverless cars, and the creation of a new business for electric vehicle battery production.
For Porsche, sales performance and results are at an all-time high, with strong premiums, and the capital markets are bullish on Porsche’s prospects. A new financial and brand structure after independence will bring new access to financing to further drive its electrification.
