The Porsche lettering on the facade of the Porsche Center Schwarzwald-Baar
Thanks to the increase in profits at the main investment in Volkswagen, the consolidated profit of Porsche SE climbed by 200 million euros to 4.8 billion euros last year.
(Photo: IMAGO/Silas Stein)
VW’s main shareholder Porsche SE wants to significantly reduce the debt this year, which increased with the purchase of the block of shares in the sports car manufacturer Porsche. The Dax group announced on Thursday that net liquidity should fall from minus 6.7 billion euros to a deficit of between 6.1 and 5.6 billion euros.
The shortfall stems from the borrowing of 7.1 billion euros, which the holding company of the VW-owning families Porsche and Piech needed to buy 25 percent of the ordinary shares plus a share certificate for the IPO of Porsche. “The acquisition of this second core holding is a very important step towards sustainable value creation for our company,” said CEO Hans Dieter Pötsch, according to the text of the speech.
Thanks to the increase in profits at the main investment in Volkswagen, the consolidated profit of Porsche SE climbed by 200 million euros to 4.8 billion euros last year. For the current year, Porsche SE expects group earnings after taxes of between 4.5 billion euros and 6.5 billion euros.
As in the previous year, the dividend for the past year is to amount to EUR 2.56 per preferred share and EUR 2.554 per ordinary share – the latter belong exclusively to the Porsche and Piech families. The distribution to the shareholders can be kept stable while reducing debt at the same time thanks to around 1.5 billion euros in dividends that flow to Porsche SE from VW and Porsche.
CEO Pötsch explained that Porsche SE’s share price was too low: “In our view, Porsche SE is significantly undervalued.” . The reason for this is the view of investors on the holding company’s high level of debt. Porsche SE responded to this “exaggeration” by saying that it had “a rock-solid financing and repayment plan” to reduce debt.
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