Fancy Financing

Just to show that financial games are not the sole preserve of anglo-saxon investment banks, the FT looks at the Porsche take-over of VW.

VW’s share price was squeezed to such heights that it became the 11th biggest company in the world, worth more than other European and US carmakers combined. Absurd. Even more absurd is that this false market is legal in Germany. Stranger still is that Porsche and its managers – even though VW’s share price has fallen – may well have made money from it all. Last year, the company earned €3.6bn from option operations – some three times as much as from cars – profits that will help it buy VW. Porsche used to be the emblem of a go-go City trader. Now it has become one.

Fancy financing and outsmarting the hedge funds!