Porsche shares begin trading after IPO

Shares of Porsche, which successfully completed its initial public offering, began trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on Thursday.

The Volkswagen Group, which owned 100% of Porsche's shares prior to the initial public offering, set the offering price at €82.50 (about $79.60) per share, valuing the sports car brand at €75 billion.

The share price had risen to €84.90 as of this writing.

The VW Group first expressed interest in taking Porsche public in February and announced an IPO in early September. In the process, Porsche was split into 911 million shares, split 50:50 between preferred and common shares. The preferred shares have no voting rights but carry a higher dividend.

The VW Group went public with 12.5% of all shares, all preferred shares. The move raised €9.4 billion, part of which will be returned to shareholders as a special dividend. The bulk of the proceeds will be used to invest in key areas such as electric vehicles, self-driving technology, and software development.

Porsche SE, the holding company majority-owned by the Porsche and Piech families and the largest shareholder in the VW Group, acquired 25% of the common shares plus one share.

VW Group could make another IPO in the near future; VW Group CFO Arno Antlitz said in a July investor presentation that an IPO of recently formed battery company PowerCo is possible next year or in 2024. PowerCo is responsible for the global battery activities of the VW Group. The company has announced plans to build six battery plants in Europe and is considering establishing one in North America.