Largest IPO since Telekom: Porsche shares celebrate their debut on the stock market: Porsche IPO mixed – Porsche shares ultimately unchanged | news

• Porsche starts at the stock exchange above the issue price
• Initial course marked at 84 euros
• VW takes in around 20 billion euros

There are 911 million Porsche shares – part of which can now be traded publicly on the stock exchange. In total, including over-allotment options, 113,875,000 non-voting preferred shares of the sports car manufacturer were issued. The titles were offered in a price range between 76.50 and 82.50 euros. Ultimately, the Porsche share was placed on the market at the upper end of the bookbuilding range, the share price was set at EUR 82.50 on Wednesday. According to Porsche, the lion’s share of the shares went to large investors. Private investors only received 7.7 percent of the placement volume. Because the offer was oversubscribed, not all private shareholders could have been considered, it said. Four anchor investors, including VW’s major shareholder Qatar, had already secured almost 40 percent of the shares in advance.

In the network of numbers surrounding one of the largest IPOs in German economic history, the 40 is likely to be forgotten again soon. Porsche CEO Oliver Blume and CFO Lutz Meschke fervently rang the symbolic bell for the start of trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange for exactly that many seconds on Thursday. The relief was written all over the managers’ faces: Despite adverse economic and political circumstances and turbulence on the stock exchange, the Stuttgart company managed to get on the floor properly – even if the big flight didn’t materialize.

The initial price of Porsche shares was 84 euros, a further 1.81 percent above the issue price. However, the difficult market conditions are noticeable in the course of trading – the Porsche share fluctuates back and forth between the issue price and a price above the initial price. At the daily high, the share went for 86.76 euros. At the end of trading, it was listed unchanged at the issue price at EUR 82.50. Based on the first prize, Porsche achieved a market capitalization of around 76.5 billion euros. This made the Stuttgart-based company more valuable when it started on the stock exchange than Mercedes-Benz with around 58 billion euros and BMW with 47 billion euros. The parent company Volkswagen was even higher on Thursday with 86 billion euros.

Largest IPO since Deutsche Telekom’s IPO

Investor interest had already become apparent in advance. At the start of the subscription period on September 20, the banks accompanying the IPO announced that the books were “many times oversubscribed across the entire price range”.

The issue of the shares at the upper end of the price range resulted in a placement volume of EUR 9.39 billion. The Porsche IPO is the largest German new issue since Deutsche Telekom’s IPO in 1996, which brought 9.65 billion euros into the coffers of the telecommunications group.

But the Porsche parent company Volkswagen raised significantly more capital as part of the Porsche IPO. Because 25 percent of the voting ordinary shares (plus one share) were sold as planned to VW’s major shareholder Porsche Holding, which secured the Wolfsburg-based company additional income of around ten billion euros. The DAX group wants to invest the money in electromobility and digital, where costs in the billions are to be expected. The people of Stuttgart hope that going onto the floor will take them a step towards more independence again. In 2008/2009, the Stuttgart company tried to take over VW – that failed and the Lower Saxony company swallowed up the sports car manufacturer. Since then, Porsche has been considered a pearl of return in the VW Group.

VW and Porsche management, workforce and shareholders benefit from the IPO

In addition to the VW Group, there are other beneficiaries of the Porsche IPO. In particular, the management levels of Porsche and VW can hope for a rain of money. According to reports, Volkswagen and Porsche CEO Oliver Blume and his fellow Porsche board members can expect stock bonuses worth millions if the sports car manufacturer goes public. An IPO bonus of around 6,600 euros per employee is planned for the Porsche workforce. Investors could benefit from a special dividend of 49 percent of the total proceeds from the IPO and the sale of ordinary shares from the Porsche IPO – this is to be decided at an extraordinary general meeting in December.

Management of Porsche and VW satisfied with IPO

“Today a big dream is coming true for us,” said Porsche CEO Oliver Blume on Thursday at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, who has also been at the helm of Volkswagen since September. VW CFO Arno Antlitz said: “We proved today: Volkswagen can capital market – even in a challenging market environment.”

Shareholder representatives satisfied with Porsche IPO for small investors

Although small investors hardly got a chance at the Porsche IPO, shareholder representatives were satisfied with the IPO. The fact that initially only 7.7 percent of the preferred shares went to private investors was to be expected, said the President of the German Association for the Protection of Securities (DSW), Ulrich Hocker, on Thursday of the German Press Agency. “I also think that in view of these weak times on the stock exchange, it’s a good thing that you didn’t put too much directly into the open market at once. Then the price would certainly be more at risk overall.” Overall, the IPO can be rated as successful in the midst of the difficult market environment.

Hocker repeated the shareholder representatives’ criticism of Oliver Blume’s dual function as head of Porsche and, since September, also head of VW. But he also sees that the Stuttgart-based sports car manufacturer now – as he repeatedly emphasizes – has more independence. “Porsche’s story can now also be made clearer on the stock exchange in a separate, more transparent manner,” said Hocker. Now, for example, there are separate financial statements from Porsche AG.

Editorial office finanzen.net

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