Porsche IPO needs consideration – Volkswagen CEO

In an interview with Reuters, Volkswagen Group board chairman Herbert Diess revealed that any steps to take Porsche public in order to tap into capital markets “would have to be carefully considered.”

Diess was asked about a potential initial public offering (IPO) of Porsche, which has been highly speculated previously as a way for the group to increase its valuation and source capital. However, he did not explicitly state if anything of the sort will happen, and that the focus for the company now is electrification.

“As I said, we continue to review our set up. First priority is now to finance the battery ramp-up where we try to partly externally finance and we are working out the models,” said Diess. “And all the other, let say, possibilities to go to market, which might be trucks, where we could dilute a little bit… or any other things, we have to consider,” he added.

Previously, Lutz Meschke, who is the deputy chairman and member of the executive board for finance and IT at Porsche, suggested that Porsche could be worth up to 70 billion euros with an IPO. The money raised could then be used to help fund the group’s electrification push.

This idea was shut down shortly after by Diess, who told Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in March that “you don’t want to give up a pearl like Porsche.” On a related note, the group also dismissed the idea of selling another one of its brands, namely Lamborghini, to free up resources.

With Porsche being involved with the joint venture between Bugatti and Rimac – the German company has a 45% stake – an IPO could complicate things. Porsche is a highly profitable division within the group and it looks to remain that way, which could further reduce the need for an IPO.

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