Stuttgart - Rival family owners of Porsche gathered Sunday
for a crucial meeting that could decide the future of the indebted
German sports carmaker and its bigger rival Volkswagen.
Sources close to the talks said members of the Porsche and Piech
clans met in the Austrian town of Salzburg, a day after it was
reported the Gulf emirate of Qatar had bid 7 billion euros (9.8
billion dollars) for a stake in Porsche.
The state-run Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) was said to have
offered to buy 25 per cent of Porsche Holding SE and options on VW
shares currently held by Porsche.
A Porsche spokesman declined to confirm Sunday's talks, which were
expected to prepare the groundwork for an extraordinary meeting of
Porsche SE's supervisory board on July 23.
That meeting is expected to decide whether to agree to the Qatar
offer or to a counterproposal by Volkswagen to purchase 49.9 per cent
of Porsche AG, the company which makes the sports cars.
While the carmaker itself is profitable, the holding company
amassed debt of 9 billion euros through its purchase of shares and
options in a bid last year to acquire Volkswagen, Europe's biggest
carmaker. It won the bulk of the shares, but not control.
Allowing Qatar to take a stake would enable Porsche to clear a
large chunk of its debt and strengthen the position of chief
executive Wendelin Wiedeking, who is bitterly opposed to the plans of
Volkswagen patriarch Ferdinand Piech to integrate Porsche into
Volkswagen.
VW's offer, believed to be worth between 3-4 billion euros, was
rejected by Porsche last month as unsuitable. The news magazine Der
Spiegel said Saturday that VW had upped its offer to 'considerably
more than 4 billion euros.'
Porsche owns 51 per cent of Volkswagen and has share options with
banks for another 24 per cent. The other major shareholder is the
state of Lower Saxony, where VW has its headquarters, with just over
20 per cent.
Porsche has been seeking an injection of capital since its
application for a 1.75-billion-euros loan from KfW, the German
federal development bank, was rejected.
USA
Your Talkback on this Story