The iconic automaker Porsche is to go public in the next few weeks, despite turbulent economic conditions putting off other major deals.
Volkswagen first contemplated spinning off Porsche in February, just before the invasion of Ukraine. In a statement on Monday the company confirmed it still intended to follow through with the initial public offering, either later this month or early October, “subject to further capital market developments.”
The German automaker has said it will use the funds from the deal to boost its electric vehicle production plans. Volkswagen has said that it will spend around $88.4 billion over the next five years developing electric vehicles, and wants sales of EVs to make up a quarter of the company’s sales by the end of 2026.
The Porsche IPO will offer up 12.5% of the new company to investors as preference shares, and nearly half of the proceeds of a “successful IPO” will go straight to Volkswagen shareholders as a special dividend.
According to Reuters, the IPO could value Porsche at nearly $85 billion, and the deal could raise more than $10.4 billion for Volkswagen. Those kinds of numbers would make the deal one of the largest IPOs ever in Europe.
The IPO market in Europe has been largely closed in the past two quarters, as economic uncertainty brought on by an energy crisis, war in Ukraine, and other factors has spooked investors. IPO issuance for Q2 of this year totaled €2.1billion ($2.085 billion) from 29 offerings , compared to €23.1 billion from 142 IPOs in the same period last year, according to research from pwc.
The IPO market in London has seen a similar story. There were just 3 IPOs in the second quarter of this year, down from 20 last year. Porsche will be bucking the trend should it go ahead with its IPO.