Porsche, the largest shareholder in Volkswagen, will soon exercise a call option to raise its voting stake to just over 25%, Porsche said on Monday, according to Reuters.
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The holding in VW would then hand the sports car maker a blocking minority and likely prevent any hostile takeover bid should Germany’s Volkswagen Law – which limits any shareholder to exercising 20% of the voting rights – be repealed as expected, the news agency noted.
“We want to increase our stake in the near future,” a spokesman for Porsche told Reuters, without providing further details.
On Sunday, according to the news agency, German weekly Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung cited banking sources as saying Porsche chief executive Wendelin Wiedeking wanted to raise the stake to 25.1% from a current holding of around 21.3% by mid-October at the latest.
German cartel regulators at the beginning of July already approved Porsche increasing its holding in VW, and Porsche had said previously it should control 25.1% by the end of the year, the report said.
Porsche reportedly said the stake would cost it EUR3.5bn ($US4.5bn) in total.
