Porsche Loses High Court Bid Challenging Volkswagen Law

Add a Comment

Comments (3)

newest first oldest first

Bristol411S3

That last paragraph doesn't make sense.

November 27, 2008 8:08 pm

report abuse | reply

1 reply

radmeister

It may own 74.1% of the shares, BUT the company may not be entirely public and that 74.1% may only represent 10% of the actual company. The rest may be owned by the institution itself. Like if I own a 5 billion dollar company, i may choose to make 1 billion of that public, and 4 billion to keep as private shares with lets say 1 billion $/share and give 1 share to 3 people in my family and 1 for myself. So Porsche may already own 74% of the public shares which may represent half of VW's worth. Which then means they need 100% to get 50% ownership of the company.

November 27, 2008 8:33 pm

report abuse | reply

nathandavid88

The way it works is that Porsche 'effectively' owns 74.1% of VW, however, only about 46% of Porsche's stake is made up of shares. The remainder is made up of options, which allows Porsche to have first dibs on buying these share, when it so wishes to. But these shares can't be sold to anyone else, so effectively Porsche controls these shares without owning them...yet!

November 28, 2008 9:53 am

report abuse | reply