Stuttgart – Porsche, the Stuttgart sports car manufacturer, has underlined its position as the most profitable car manufacturer in the world with a huge leap in profit. In the recently expired fiscal year (ending on 31 July 2007), Porsche increased its pretax profit from 2.110 billion euros to 5.857 billion euros, primarily thanks to its share in Volkswagen. This was reported by the company on Monday after a meeting of the supervisory board. It was mainly accounted for by successful share options transactions, which alone contributed 3.593 billion euros to the pretax result. The consolidated profit for the year tripled to 4.242 billion euros (previous year: 1.393 billion euros). In its last fiscal year, Porsche achieved a turnover of around 7.4 billion euros. This means that turnover and profit this time are no longer so far apart from each other.
Porsche wants to pay out a high special dividend so that the shareholders can participate in the outstanding success as well. In addition to a one euro increase in the dividend per ordinary share (6.94 euros) and preference share (7 euros), all the shareholders will receive a special dividend payout of 15 euros. As a result, the amount paid out will increase from 157 million euros to around 384 million euros, said the company. In addition, a share split in the ratio of 1:10 is intended to make it easier for private investors to trade in Porsche preference shares. In the afternoon, preference share prices rose by around three per cent to approximately 1769 euros. In connection with the share split, the share capital of Dr. Ing.h.c.F.Porsche AG, which is currently around 45.5 million euros, will also increase in value to 175 million euros. All the ordinary shares are held by the Porsche and Piëch families.
The core business of the company had remained on the high level of last year without any special influences, said Porsche, but not mentioning any details. The special effects included the three-digit development expenses for the fourth Panamera series as well as the hybrid drive for the Cayenne. The revaluation of the share in VW (30.6 per cent of the ordinary shares), stated the company, brought in a one-off amount of 520.8 million euros. The VW result which was reported at the end of the fiscal year and is assignable to Porsche reached 702.4 million euros. The high profit from options business arose from options to buy VW shares which Porsche secured for a specific amount on a set day in order to stock up its share in the Wolfsburg company, if necessary. The difference will benefit Porsche because the price of the VW share has increased considerably in the meantime.
This Tuesday, Porsche wants to enter the new Porsche Holding SE in the commercial register. Apart from the sports car business, the new company holds the share in VW as well. This is disputed because the VW employees' committees feels that they re under-represented on the supervisory board of the holding in the event that VW is taken over by Porsche. Although considerably bigger, VW employees' representatives, like Porsche employees' representatives, are then to provide three members of the supervisory board. The VW employees' committee took the matter to the courts but was initially unsuccessful. According to a report by Porsche, Uwe Huck, head of the employees' committee at Porsche, took part in the meeting of the supervisory board on Monday and expressed his thanks for the fact that all the shareholders had clearly spoken out in favour of the disputed co-determination agreement of the future holding – in other words, head of the VW supervisory board, Ferdinand Piëch, as well. "This clear concession shows me that the agreement has the full backing of the Porsche and Piëch families."
Source: dpa/lsw
