Porsche to debut amid market tumult in historic IPO

FRANKFURT, Sept 29 (Reuters) – Shares in Porsche AG are listed on Thursday after Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) priced shares at the top end of the announced range, a sign the luxury brand is luring buyers despite market turbulence Has.

The books closed Wednesday with a final price of €82.50, the automaker said, at the top end of the €76.50 to €82.50 range announced earlier this month.

Shares are expected to start trading around 9:15 a.m. local time (07:15 GMT).

The Bumper IPO, which is expected to raise around 19.5 billion euros ($19.0 billion), comes at a time when instability in European markets has meant almost no further share sales have taken place and Automaker stocks, including those in the luxury segment, have plummeted.

Companies on the continent raised $44 billion this year, the lowest amount since the 2009 global financial crisis, of which just $4.5 billion came from IPOs, according to Refinitiv data.

Volkswagen said market volatility is precisely why fund managers with money to invest desperately needed a stable and attractive stock like Porsche AG.

“Porsche was and is the pearl in the Volkswagen Group,” says Chris-Oliver Schickentanz, Chief Investment Officer at fund manager Capitell. “The IPO has now made the value of the market for Porsche very, very transparent. Of course, this also has a positive effect on Volkswagen shareholders.”

Given the tens of billions of dollars it would cost to make a radical shift to electromobility and software, Volkswagen executives had long considered listing Porsche, a move they hoped would raise both much-needed funds and the company’s own value Volkswagen would increase.

The Porsche and Piech families, in turn, consolidated their control of the automaker with 25% plus one voting common share in Porsche AG, effectively obtaining a blocking minority in the namesake brand.

Up to 113,875,000 non-voting preferred shares will be sold to investors in the IPO.

($1 = 1.0273 euros)

Reporting by Victoria Waldersee and Emma-Victoria Farr; Edited by Hugh Lawson and Richard Pullin

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