Porsche is seeking a compromise with the state of Lower Saxony on its blocking minority in Volkswagen ahead of the Volkswagen AG annual general meeting (AGM) on 24 April.
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The Stuttgart company has tabled a motion at the AGM calling for some of VW’s articles of association to be changed, including the one that gives the state a 20% blocking minority vote on key AGM decisions. In exchange, Porsche is reportedly offering the state some kind of guarantee that will allow the continued existence of Volkswagen’s plants in Germany.
Porsche currently owns 31% of Porsche shares but plans to increase this to a majority shareholding in the near future.
There is no suggestion that Lower Saxony will go along with Porsche’s plans. Yesterday, Wirtschaftswoche reported that Christian Wulff, the prime minister of the state of Lower Saxony, was looking into raising the state’s shareholding in Volkswagen AG from 20% to 25%, to allow it to retain a blocking minority. (A 25% blocking minority is normal in most companies, while Volkswagen has been the subject of a special law to give Lower Saxony a 20% minority veto.) Lower Saxony could reportedly fund the purchase through the sale of its stakes in around 50 other companies.
Earlier last week there were reports that Porsche had approached Lower Saxony and offered to buy all or half of its stake in Volkswagen. Bloomberg reported that Lower Saxony was offered EUR5bn (US$7.9bn) for half of its 20% stake. In return it was offered two seats on Volkswagen’s supervisory board and guarantees that decisions about factory closures or mass job cuts would require a two-thirds majority agreement.
Workers representatives are hoping that small shareholders will back the state of Lower Saxony at the GM. Bernd Osterloh, head of the Volkswagen works council, told Handelsblatt in an interview that he is sure that many small shareholders will support the state, because, he said, Porsche’s plans are not transparent.
Workers will be protesting outside the AGM to defend their right to representation in the decision-making process when Porsche become the majority shareholder.
