The long, winding road to Volkswagen’s Porsche IPO

Workers of German automobile producer Porsche set up the windshield of a Porsche 911 on the Porsche manufacturing unit in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, Germany, February 19, 2019. Image taken February 19, 2019. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski

FRANKFURT, Sept 5 (Reuters) – Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) introduced its intention to drift sportscar maker Porsche on Monday, marking a brand new section in a typically fraught relationship between the 2 main auto manufacturers that goes again many years.

1931

Ferdinand Porsche opens a design workplace, the primary stage of a enterprise that may later turn out to be the eponymous sports activities automobile maker.

1938

Porsche, who designed the primary VW Beetle, oversees the constructing of the primary manufacturing corridor for Volkswagen.

1960

State-owned Volkswagen is privatised, with each the federal authorities and the corporate’s dwelling state of Decrease Saxony receiving a 20% stake.

1993

Ferdinands Porsche’s grandson Ferdinand Piech turns into chief government of Volkswagen, which means “the folks’s automobile” in German. His revolutionary “platform technique”, which includes utilizing the identical primary design for various fashions and including bespoke elements on prime, allowed economies of scale and was credited with saving the corporate from attainable collapse.

2002

Piech appoints Bernd Pischetsrieder as his successor as CEO and Piech turns into Volkswagen’s chairman, a place he’ll maintain till 2015.

2005

September – Porsche says it plans to purchase a 20% stake in VW and later emerges with a ten.3% voting stake.

November – Porsche’s supervisory board authorises a rise within the stake to 29.9%, triggering hypothesis it plans to realize majority management.

2007

April – Porsche submits a compulsory takeover supply for Volkswagen after crossing 30% threshold.

2008

March – Porsche SE’s supervisory board offers the go-ahead to lift its Volkswagen voting stake to over 50%.

October – Porsche SE says it holds inventory and choices that give it management of 74% of Volkswagen’s votes and declares plans for a “domination” settlement. A ensuing scramble for Volkswagen shares by shortsellers caught out by the announcement briefly makes VW the world’s Most worthy firm.

2009

January – Porsche SE says it has raised its VW voting stake to 50.8% and confirms its plan to lift stake to 75% later if circumstances permit.

Could – Porsche SE drops the Volkswagen takeover plan and says it can as an alternative pursue a merger with Europe’s largest auto maker. Volkswagen Chairman Piech says Porsche should get its 9 billion euro debt beneath management earlier than any deal will be agreed.

July – Porsche SE Chairman Wolfgang Porsche, Piech’s cousin, calls a rare supervisory board assembly for July 23 to debate a attainable sale of a stake in Porsche SE to Qatar value over 5 billion euros. A proposal by Porsche’s board to organize for a capital enhance of no less than 5 billion euros ($5 billion) in money and/or a contribution in type, is accredited by the supervisory board, setting the stage for a merger with Volkswagen. Porsche SE Wendelin Wiedeking steps down.

December – Volkswagen says it has purchased 49.9% of Porsche SE’s sports activities automobile enterprise Porsche AG at a value of three.9 billion euros.

2010

January – A bunch of funding funds sues Porsche SE and two of its former prime executives, accusing them of fraud in a “quick squeeze” that induced the funds to lose greater than $1 billion from Porsche’s tried takeover of Volkswagen AG in 2008.

April – Elliott Associates, L.P. says the securities fraud and manipulation lawsuit in opposition to Porsche SE has obtained larger, that it’s in search of greater than $2 billion in losses and 18 funding funds have joined the lawsuit.

October – Auto holding Porsche SE says it might not be absorbed into Volkswagen by the top of 2011, as deliberate, as a result of some unresolved authorized and tax points associated to the deal, the CEO of each corporations, Martin Winterkorn, says.

2012

July – Volkswagen agrees to purchase the remaining 50.1% stake in Porsche AG from Porsche SE for about 4.5 billion euros.

Porsche AG, the carmaker, is now totally owned by Volkswagen AG, whereas Porsche SE, which is managed by the Porsche and Piech households, is Volkswagen’s largest shareholder and holds a majority of voting rights.

2022

February – Volkswagen and Porsche SE say they’re inspecting a attainable preliminary public providing of Porsche AG, beneath a proposed construction that might give Porsche SE a blocking minority within the eponymous carmaker.

September – Volkswagen declares its intention to record Porsche on the finish of September or early October.

($1 = 0.9984 euros)

Compiled by Christoph Steitz; Enhancing by Barbara Lewis and Alistair Bell

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