Bankruptcy

Porsche Gambles on VW May Come Home to Roost

By mcbride

Using borrowed money and a series of options and related devices, Porsche engineered a take over of VW and made itself rich (on paper) in the process.  However, that all may be changing.  ?Recall that Porsche engineered a massive short squeeze of Volkswagen common stock (VLKAF.PK) just a few months ago. Volkswagen?s common had been shorted by arbitrageurs who went long the undervalued preferred at the same time?.The risk is that the unwinding of the hedges on cash settled options will lead to massive selling of the VW shares. This would depress the value of Porsche?s holdings of VW, and flow through the income statement. Much of last year?s gains by Porsche were realized through the appreciation of VW shares during the short squeeze. Upon the expiration of the options, the opposite effect may happen, and Porsche will face losses of billions of Euros?.It has now been made public that Porsche was already skirting insolvency in late March, when Eur 10bn of debt came due.?The Porsche / Piëch families own large stakes in both VW and Porsche. The Porsche family hypothecated parts of its Austrian dealership network for some of the loans. Although the seriousness of Porsche?s situation was not known at the time, the market did see an increased default risk for Porsche.

Here is a link to this story:  http://seekingalpha.com/article/139571-porsche-at-risk-of-bankruptcy-unlikely-to-find-much-sympathy

Michael

Full post as published by Texas Lawyer Blog on May 26, 2009 (boomark / email).