Bocconi and Sole shocked the Porsche IPO, that’s why

29 September 20222 years ago babelfish

Who and how criticizes the Porsche IPO

Volkswagen has set the placement price of the preferred shares of Porsche, a sports car brand, at 82.50 euros per coupon, at the maximum limit of the previously identified range. This gives the company that is preparing to go public a valuation of 75 billion euros. In short, it is now official: we are facing one of the most important IPOs of the last decade (in the automotive field, we must return to the Ferrari listing), which is characterized by being completed at a time of great uncertainty for the markets, a moment that of Normally, it does not favor the quotations of new subjects (in 2022 other electric brands should have appeared on the Stock Exchange, mostly of rapidly growing startups, but they understandably preferred to postpone). It is therefore normal that this operation, which will serve the Volkswagen Group to collect funds for the electrification of the supercar, is causing discussion.

If the Greenshoe Option is fully exercised, Volkswagen will generate gross revenues of approximately € 9.4 billion. The shares will be traded on the regulated market of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Prime Standard) starting from Thursday 29 September 2022. Sul Sole 24 Ore , Stefano Gatti , Antin IP Professor of Infrastructure Finance in the Finance Department of Bocconi University, writes: “The particularity of this IPO is indicative of some trends that investors have embarked on for some time in response to a relative slackening of the risk aversion generated by years of quantitative easing and compression of financial returns ", underlining how" to be listed will not be , as would be reasonable, shares with voting rights – which would allow shareholders to exert some influence on management in a logic of constructive corporate governance dialectic – but preferred shares without voting rights. Half will be put on the market. The listing will therefore concern 12.5% of the total share capital of Porsche AG ”.

In short, the fact is highlighted that this is a collection of capital with unusual mechanisms, by means of which the historic Porsche-Piëch families, while asking for help from the capital market, strengthen control over Volkswagen which, at the end of the operation, will hold 75 % (minus one) of the shares with voting rights and approximately 75% of the preference shares. In short, no one will undermine the Porsche-Piëch from the wheel of Porsche AG since the IPO does not affect the power of strategic direction of the sports car manufacturer. In addition, we add, let's not forget that, having been ousted Herbert Diess , the new CEO of VW, since last September 1st is Oliver Blume , CEO of Porsche since 2015.

“What is the Porsche Ipo ultimately – wonders Gatti? A source of fresh resources for Volkswagen or rather a reorganization of the governance of Porsche itself? Moreover, considering that the overall picture of the operation is completed by the provision of an extraordinary maxi-dividend payment to all Volkswagen shareholders equal to 49% of the proceeds of the operation, the answer is quite easy ”.

“We find ourselves – notes the professor – facing a listing of shares without voting rights. Shareholders abdicate any control over the company […] and we are not talking about retail shareholders but institutional investors, those who should play a critical role towards management, especially in a sector such as the automotive one which will be marked in the coming years by radical changes ". All the more so since, with the arrival of the new CEO, the Group could also change the plan for the electric transition married with conviction by those who preceded it. “[…] The renunciation of one's rights of control, as shareholders in the case of quotations, of the powers of direction over debtors in the case of transactions on the debt market, is the result of an exceptional period of yield compression”.

Meanwhile, Volkswagen has announced that it will convene an extraordinary general meeting in December 2022, in which it will propose to its shareholders to distribute at the beginning of 2023 a special dividend equal to 49% of the total gross proceeds from the placement of the preference shares and the sale of the shares. ordinary to the Porsche holding.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/bocconi-e-sole-folgorano-lipo-di-porsche-ecco-perche/ on Thu, 29 Sep 2022 12:44:31 +0000.