Porsche has acquired over 50% of Volkswagen, increasing its holding to 50.76% of all ordinary voting shares.
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As a result of passing this threshold, Porsche is now required by German law to make a mandatory take over of truck manufacturer, Scania AB, which currently it controls indirectly. In a statement, the luxury sportscar and SUV maker said it had no strategic interest in acquiring Scania shares and that it would offer the minimum price required by law.
Porsche had originally planned to raise its shareholding to over 50% of VW stock by the end of last year but a spike in the share price meant the company was cautious not to buy when the bill was too high.
Porsche had said it would aim to increase its shareholding to 75% during 2009 and would then seek a domination and profit transfer agreement. This would mean that the most important decisions regarding the company would no longer be made by the Volkswagen supervisory board but by the Porsche Holding board. Porsche could then appoint board members, decide on new models and which plants would get those models. It would also receive all the profits.
Porsche delivered its best financial result ever for the financial year ending 31 July, thanks to successful trading in VW stock. But Porsche has not been making nearly so much money from selling cars, and the company has already announced that it will not achieve any growth on 2007’s sales volume of 98,652.
The company has been particularly hard hit by the decline in the US market. In 2008 Porsche sales were down 24% to 27,717 units, from 36,680 in 2007.
