The major Volkswagen shareholder Porsche SE is investing in the transport provider Flix: As Porsche Automobil Holding SE announced on Monday in Stuttgart, it secured a stake of around 35 percent together with the Swedish investment fund EQT, Kühne Holding and “other co-investors”. in the company that operates the Flixtrain and Flixbus. Porsche SE is investing “a low double-digit million amount” to achieve this, it said, in order to further support the company on its growth path. The transaction, for which no further details were disclosed, is subject to regulatory approval. It is expected to be completed by the end of the year. Flix is an “impressive success story,” said Lutz Meschke, Porsche’s board member for investment management, commenting on the planned entry. “We continue to see great growth potential for sustainable and affordable mobility offers in the future and are pleased to support the further global expansion of the Flix platform.” Flix is just the beginning The transport company Flix was founded in 2012 and offers travel by long-distance bus and long-distance train 5600 targets. According to the company, sales last year amounted to more than two billion euros. Flix is now active in more than 40 countries, including Europe, Turkey, the United States, South America and India. Flix will probably not be the only company in which Porsche SE wants to invest. The major VW and Porsche shareholder wants to acquire additional shares in companies as his financial strength grows. “Our financial resources give us considerable scope for potential investments in further core and portfolio investments,” said CFO Johannes Lattwein on Tuesday. “The current stock market environment and the overall decline in company valuations as a result open up attractive opportunities for us.” The PSE is thus indicating that to invest in listed companies beyond VW and Porsche in the future. Huge mountain of debt The PSE began building up its investments ten years ago, when the Stuttgart company was still swimming in money. However, the holding, which is controlled by the VW owning families Porsche and Piëch, still has to reduce the mountain of debt that arose with the purchase of the Porsche share. The PSE’s net debt shrank by 0.7 to 5.0 billion euros in the first half of the year. It has its sights set on start-ups along the mobile value chain, such as software companies specializing in traffic management or autonomous driving.More on the topicIn addition to the two long-term investments VW and Porsche, the PSE owns minority shares in 15 small technology companies in North America, Europe and Israel as well as in funds. The company shares are intended to be held for a limited period of time in order to participate in high growth and potential for increased value. So far, however, they have hardly brought in any money: in the first half of the year it was two million euros, while the PSE earned a total of 2.1 billion euros from VW and Porsche. That was around 200 million euros less than a year ago, as profits at the two car manufacturers recently fell.
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