Porsche IPO could raise up to €75bn for parent Volkswagen
The luxury carmaker Porsche could be valued at as much as €75bn when it floats on the Frankfurt stock exchange later this month, which would make it one of the largest European public offerings to date, according to the pricing of shares by its parent company, Volkswagen.
Volkswagen, which is planning to float 12.5% on 29 September, has priced the shares in Porsche at between €76.50 (£67.14) and €82.50.
The €70bn to €75bn valuation range, the midpoint of analysts’ expectations, will result in Volkswagen receiving €8.7bn to €9.4bn.
The company has said it intends to use 49% of the proceeds to pay a oneoff special dividend to shareholders, with the remainder to help fund the costly shift towards electric vehicles and battery technology.
The listing will comprise 911m shares, a nod to the historic car brand’s most famous model, divided into 455.5m preferred shares and 455.5m ordinary shares. Up to 113.8m of the preferred shares, carrying no voting rights, will be placed with investors in what will be Germany’s second largest initial public offering to date.
If Porsche hits its upper-end valuation it will become Europe’s third largest stock market float on record, according to Refinitiv data.
The sovereign wealth funds of Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Norway as well as the mutual fund company T Rowe Price will subscribe up to €3.68bn worth of preferred shares.
“We are now in the home stretch with the IPO plans for Porsche and welcome the commitment of our cornerstone investors,” the Volkswagen chief financial officer and chief operating officer, Arno Antlitz, said.
As part of the partial float, the Porsche-Piëch families, who are VW’s anchor shareholders, will buy a further 12.5% of Porsche, at a premium of 7.5% on the price of the shares offered to the general public.
The families’ shareholding, which will rise to 25% plus one ordinary share, will carry voting rights.
Porsche SE, the Porsche-Piëch investment vehicle, said it would finance the acquisition of its Porsche shares with debt capital of up to €7.9bn.
The proceeds of the sale of shares to the Porsche-Piëch families, who lost direct control of the company when VW bought Porsche in a reverse takeover in 2012, will bring in up to €10bn.
Total proceeds from the sale will be €18.1bn to €19.5bn.