On February 22, Local Time, Volkswagen Group issued a statement on its official website saying that Volkswagen AG and Porsche Automobil Holding SE reached a framework agreement on the listing of Porsche Motors' IPO, thus confirming the long-rumored news of Porsche's IPO. Wall Street in the United States estimates that if Porsche goes public independently, it will be valued at more than 60 billion euros (equivalent to 425 billion yuan). Tesla CEO Elon Musk's previous meeting with Volkswagen CEO Herbert Dies may have also provided constructive advice.
Volkswagen Group also said that the framework agreement needs to be signed by the board of directors and supervisory board of Volkswagen and Porsche Holdings before it can be further advanced. To this end, the "Steam Talk" also interviewed relevant people in Volkswagen China and said that they would not comment on this matter. Porsche China CEO Yan Boyu said that Porsche China is only part of the Porsche Group, and whether to list or not is jointly decided by volkswagen group and Porsche board of directors.
Porsche's IPO listing is almost "a foot in the door"
As early as last April, a person familiar with the matter revealed that Porsche Motors would raise funds from the IPO listing, and the follow-up Goldman Sachs Bank and Fuerde Law Firm said that they were studying the listing of Porsche. At that time, affected by this news, the Volkswagen Group stock price rose.
The Volkswagen Group's statement confirmed that Porsche would go public in an independent IPO, and Volkswagen Group and Porsche Holdings, the people behind Porsche Motors, signed a framework agreement for this purpose. Although it has yet to be signed by the board of directors and the board of supervisors, from the perspective of the development of the event, the Porsche Automotive IPO is basically a foregone conclusion.
In FY2021, Porsche delivered a record number of new vehicles worldwide, delivering 301,915 new vehicles, up 11% year-on-year. The Chinese market became Porsche's largest single market in the world for the seventh consecutive year, up 8% year-on-year. In addition to sales not being affected by the epidemic, Porsche also maintains a good sales margin, which makes the capital market very optimistic about the prospects of Porsche's IPO.
According to Wall Street in the United States, if Porsche is successfully listed independently, its valuation ranges from about 60 billion to 85 billion euros, which may become one of the largest IPOs in Europe.
Seek a new way out for enterprise transformation
If porsche cars IPO is successful, it will be a landmark event for Porsche and Volkswagen, which have been fighting for many years, and the feud between the two families may come to an end. Porsche's performance in recent years has been very good, it can be said that it is not bad money. However, it is also facing the pressure of transformation, whether from the policy, capital or government level, we are infinitely optimistic about the prospects of new energy vehicles.
Tesla, for example, has annual sales of less than one million units, but enjoys a market value of more than $800 billion, far exceeding the Volkswagen Group, which sells tens of millions. And last year, the market value exceeded the trillion-dollar mark, becoming another public company with a market value of more than one trillion DOLLARs in the United States after Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google, and the first car manufacturer to achieve this performance.
This is a shocking event for the shareholders behind Volkswagen and Porsche, and there is an urgent need for a strategic transformation for the future. And that requires a lot of money. It can be seen that Volkswagen is focusing on the new MEB electric vehicle platform. Porsche also tested the water with the pure electric sports car Taycan.
Therefore, taking this high-quality asset of Porsche to the capital market to test the water is undoubtedly good for the public and Porsche shareholders. At the same time, it is also exploring the development direction for its brands such as Bugatti, Bentley and Lamborghini.
Due to the complex shareholder structure between Porsche and Volkswagen, the road to listing has been slow. With the signing of the framework agreement, it is believed that the follow-up work will be accelerated. After all, the market is changing from time to time, electric vehicles, driverless cars, batteries, etc. all need a lot of capital investment, from Tesla's experience, the capital market is a good choice.