Porsche acquires controlling stake in Volkswagen

17 September 2008

Porsche, the luxury sports car and sports utility vehicle maker announced in a statement that it had bought 14.4 million Volkswagen shares raising its stake by 4.9 per cent to above 35 per cent, which gives it effective control of Europe's largest carmaker.

With this increased stake, Volkswagen has now become a subsidiary of Porsche Automobil Holding, thus giving it a control through a voting majority at VW general meetings.

By German law, as part of the new shareholding structure, Porsche will now be required to submit a formal offer to buy Audi, a Volkswagen subsidiary.

Porsche will make an offer at a minimum price of about € 487 per share valued at € 170 million based on last Monday's closing price for the approximately 370,000 Audi shares which are publicly traded.

Volkswagen, which owns 99.14 per cent of Audi shares, has said it would not accept Porsche's mandatory offer.

Porsche had started buying Volkswagen shares in September 2005 in order to acquire a majority stake in its largest supplier.