Thursday 22nd August 2002

No US Listing for Porsche

Porsche pull back from US Stock Exchange listing

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[robert farago]

The US regs are simply designed to make CEOs accountable for their accounts.

What's WW so afraid of?

BTW: Who owns Porsche these days? Is it still mostly members of the VW dynasty? How independent are they?

[Leithen]

A majority of the Ordinary shares are held by the familly and relatives. The Frankfurt / US listing was to my understanding in relation to the Preference shares that are more widely held by investors.

I have to side with the good Doctor here - why pay tens of thousands of pounds to accountants just to conform with exchange listing regulations designed for multinationals. Porsche is still thankfully a small to medium size car company. In the majority owned by the family still - reporting twice a year is fine.

>> Edited by Leithen on Friday 23 August 12:28

[McNab]

"Porsche Running Scared" "What's WW so afraid of?"

Dr. Wendelin Wiedeking took the decision to opt out of the Frankfurt MDAX top 70 index when they introduced the obligatory quarterly accounts rule. He felt that quarterly accounts would give a distorted picture of the business due to its cyclical nature - development costs, tooling, outsoutced parts and even sales vary from season to season.

The article you used as a basis for your posting failed to mention that under German law no CEO can take sole responsibility for a company's financial accounts. The responsibility must be shared by the entire Board of Directors and, as the good Doctor said, no-one can attest the absolute accuracy of figures provided by accountancy staff.

Mistakes take time to filter through, and provision is always made for these in company accounts. We are talking about minor mistakes here - far removed from the fraudulent activities of the US concerns which have recently made headlines. And it is no surprise that an ethically sound Board of Directors should take offence at the implications inherent in the new US ruling, just as they would be offended by your own insinuations.

Porsche remains under family control.