Et is a new era that begins for Porsche this Thursday. Suddenly, the Stuttgart company is no longer one of many brands in the VW group. The manufacturer, which is brimming with returns and records, is no longer on the second tier of the car world, where it has been eclipsed by the large VW group, which claims the top spot for itself.
In the future, Porsche itself will be in the limelight of the global car scene. With the IPO, the luxury brand can be considered the most valuable car manufacturer in Europe in the future. The stock market value is around 75 billion euros at the start of trading and should continue to rise thereafter. This means that Porsche outperforms the Stuttgart competition from Mercedes-Benz (around EUR 60 billion), BMW from Munich (around EUR 50 billion), the Stellantis group (EUR 40 billion) and Ferrari (EUR 35 billion). Only the VW hodgepodge is higher at around 85 billion euros, but Porsche itself makes up a large part of this valuation.
And the Stuttgart-based company will also be at the forefront globally: If you exclude VW, Porsche is the fourth most valuable manufacturer in the world, behind Tesla from the USA, Toyota from Japan and BYD from China. In the future, Porsche will have to prove itself in this new limelight.
The Story of Freedom
Beyond the logic of the stock market, the most important entrepreneurial argument is the independence that the IPO is supposed to bring. The Wolfsburg corporate behavior should no longer slow down the Stuttgart engineering art, the software debacle of the VW developers should no longer postpone new Porsche models that enable new freedom partnerships with Apple, Google or Bytedance. The appointment of a new board member for Car IT, who is still waiting for approval from his old employer Mercedes, was a first pointer in this direction.
At least that was Porsche’s reasoning. But the story of freedom has become increasingly implausible in recent weeks. After all, in Oliver Blume, Porsche has the same CEO as the VW Group, which has been managing both companies in one person for a month. Porsche would have to emancipate itself from its own boss. A design that even seasoned managers from the VW cosmos shake their heads about.
CFO Lutz Meschke also sits on the board of VW’s major shareholder Porsche SE. This is the holding company through which the Porsche and Piëch families exercise their power in the VW empire, and which acquires a blocking minority in the sports car manufacturer in the course of the IPO.
From whom should Meschke now emancipate himself? From the VW group that his boss runs, or from his major shareholder, who he represents himself? The group assures that the roles are meticulously separated. Porsche itself warns of potential conflicts of interest in the stock exchange prospectus. Managers are believed to be capable of a lot – but splitting yourself up is probably too much even for Blume and Meschke.
What is changing in business
The future majority relationships do not indicate more freedom for Porsche either. Only non-voting preference shares are placed on the stock exchange. In the future, Porsche SE will hold a blocking minority of 25 percent and one ordinary share, the rest will remain with VW.
Blume has also announced that this independence is not that far away. The rare chips are to be sent on from Wolfsburg to Stuttgart because a sports car brings in more money than a small car. And even if Porsche could actually be given more freedom in terms of software, the cooperation between Porsche and VW will continue in many other areas.
What is likely to change in business is the family’s right to have a say. So far, she has had a strong presence on the supervisory board and has had an indirect influence on Porsche through her stake in VW. In the future, however, thanks to the blocking minority, it will be able to have a direct say and, if in doubt, also push through decisions that are in the interest of Porsche.
That is the logic of this IPO: on the one hand, Porsche is returning to the stock market, thereby increasing its global appeal and becoming the most valuable car manufacturer in Europe. On the other hand, the manufacturer becomes, at least in part, a family business again.
