Porsche IPO may value firm at $81b
A partial initial public offering would add financing flexibility
Porsche AG’s chief financial officer said a share sale of Volkswagen AG’s most profitable unit could unlock value to echo Ferrari NV’s successful public offering and help the sports-car maker raise money if needed.
The maker of the 911 model could easily be valued “between €60 billion and €70 billion” ($81 billion, Dh254.6 billion), applying multiples for luxury-goods producers such as Ferrari, Lutz Meschke told reporters at Porsche’s development centre outside Stuttgart at an event for the brand’s first electric car, the Taycan. A partial initial public offering would add financing flexibility as the auto industry faces “the biggest transformation ever.” Porsche isn’t pursuing plans for a listing, the company said in a written statement yesterday following the comments. At Meschke’s estimate, the market value of an independent Porsche would rival that of the entire VW group, which includes 11 other brands. Shares of the parent have lost 16 per cent this year, giving it a market capitalisation to €69.3 billion.
The comments show deliberations on the structural changes run deeper than VW has mapped out so far, and offer a rare insight into top management’s thinking. Meschke said he has pointed out the benefits of a listing during internal discussions, but declined to say to what degree his view is shared by VW Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess or key stakeholders like the Porsche and Piech owner family.
Porsche parent Volkswagen Group's market cap
Partial listing possible
“VW is one of the few carmakers whose management team is aware that actions are needed in the near-term in order to optimise the positioning of the company,” Evercore ISI analyst Arndt Ellinghorst said in note. Partial listing of VW’s units are “one obvious way through which VW can prepare itself.”
Volkswagen gained as much as 2 per cent, and was up 1.7 per cent to €142.48 in Frankfurt, compared with a 0.2 per cent decline on Germany’s bluechip DAX Index.