Wednesday, Jan 26, 2011
By Alex Delmar-Morgan
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
DOHA (Zawya Dow Jones)-- Porsche Automobil Holding SE (PAH3.XE) supervisory board chairman Wolfgang Porsche said Wednesday that talks with Qatar over the German auto maker's planned capital increase were "positive".
Speaking at the sidelines of the Qatar Motor Show, Wolfgang Porsche confirmed that the Gulf Arab state, which owns a 10% voting stake in Porsche, will take part in the capital increase.
Porsche's holding firm wants to raise EUR5 billion by issuing new preference shares and common stock to reduce debt as part of a complex merger with Volkswagen AG (VOW.XE), Europe's largest auto maker by sales.
Qatar holds voting stakes of 17% and 10% in Volkswagen and Porsche, respectively, and is poised to emerge as the third anchor shareholder of a combined company along with Porsche's owner family and the German state of Lower Saxony.
Porsche's owner family controls the remaining 90% of the company's voting stock and has pledged to subscribe to new common shares worth EUR2.5 billion as part of the capital hike.
Porsche's common shares carry voting rights. The company's preference shares don't have voting power. Under the planned capital increase Porsche shareholders can only subscribe to shares of the class they already own.
-By Alex Delmar-Morgan, Dow Jones Newswires; +974 6659 9818; alex.delmar-morgan@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
26-01-11 1022GMT
