Hot wheels

Frankfurt, Jan. 6 (Reuters): Porsche Automobil Holding has raised its stake in Volkswagen to more than 50 per cent, triggering a mandatory takeover offer for Sweden’s Scania AB.

Porsche’s purchase of further ordinary shares in Volkswagen means it now holds a 50.76 per cent stake, Porsche said late on Monday. It held 42.6 per cent previously.

The additional stake of 8.16 per cent was worth about 6.1 billion euros ($8.49 billion) on the stock market on Monday, considering that Volkswagen shares closed at 254.74 euros, down 1.7 per cent.

Porsche had initially planned to raise its stake above 50 per cent by the end of last year. However, a massive short squeeze in late October briefly made VW the world’s most valuable company, when its share price rocketed to just over 1,000 euros from 210 euros in two trading sessions.

Porsche’s finance chief Holger Haerter hence said in November it was “increasingly unlikely” that Porsche would take majority control by the end of December, but added he expected to do so by early 2009 at the latest.

A Porsche spokesman confirmed that the sports car maker still planned to increase its stake in VW to 75 per cent at some point this year, given a favourable market environment.

As a result of its stake hike on Monday, Porsche now has indirect control of Swedish truck maker Scania, in which Volkswagen holds about 69 per cent of the voting rights.

Porsche is required by Swedish law to make a mandatory takeover offer, but the German sports car maker said it had no strategic interest in Scania and was not interested in acquiring Scania shares.

It said it was not bound by pre-acquisition prices and was only obliged to offer the minimum price prescribed by law.