Porsche Denies Reports About Increasing VW Stake to 75 percent

Porsche has denied a weekend report in Germany's second biggest news magazine, Focus which claimed that the sportscar maker plans to raise its Volkswagen stake to 75 percent in order to approve a domination agreement at a shareholder meeting. Last week, Porsche’s Supervisory Board authorized the Managing Board to go-ahead and initiate all steps needed to increase the sports carmaker stake in Volkswagen AG to more than 50 per cent.

“In view of the fact that the German Federal State of Lower Saxony, as the second major shareholder, holds a stake of more than 20 percent in Volkswagen, the probability of acquiring the necessary shares from the remaining freefloat is very small indeed”, Porsche said in a statement it issued today.

According to Porsche, “The background of the current media reports is obviously provided by rumours on the Stock Exchange which can be traced back to the speculative mind games of analysts and investors”. Ouch...