Wendy Wiedeking can go easier on the Klonopin. If the sources of the German magazine Focus aren’t mistaken, Porsche’s CEO has found someone who can help him out of his financial predicament: His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. The Emir of Qatar gave Wiedeking his royal word that he will shake loose several billions on Porsche’s behalf. Or rather the Sheikh’s sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) will fork over the money. Focus says they have a handshake, but no signed paper because two options are on the table: the Sheikh buys shares of Porsche . . . or Volkswagen.
Porsche has 51 percent of Volkswagen. They also have options for another 24 percent. To exercise those options costs money. Money Porsche doesn’t have.
If His Highness steps in and buys the 24 percent, Porsche could say “good riddance” to most of their €9 billion debt and party like it’s 2008. Porsche would hold 51 percent, Lower Saxony 20 percent, the Sheikh 24 percent, the remaining five percent can be owned by you and me. The scarcity of the stock should keep the valuation high.
The Porsche and Piech families love this option. Ferdinand Piech hates it; he wants VW to gobble-up Porsche.
The second option is that the Sheikh buys into the Porsche Holding. Much trickier. This would mean a capital increase at Porsche. There would be a third—royal—family at the table. Both Porsche and Piech families are not enthused about that one.
Twenty-percent owner Lower Saxony and its premier Christian Wulff doesn’t care one way or the other—officially.
“I’ve always been for a third party investor,” he says. What he wants is a decision, “in two or three weeks” on whether Porsche and VW will merge, or whether Porsche wants to stay independent. In the latter case, “Porsche will have to solve its problems on its own. Porsche needs VW, and not the other way round,” Wulff said.
If only there was a way for me to make trillions of dollars while simultaneously financing geurilla warfare against my idealogical enemies AND managing to buy their stocks right from under their noses.
My life would be complete.
Such a happy, inspiring picture!
Raise your hands if you still think it is a great idea to burn as much fuel in your personal vehicle as you can afford, no matter where it comes from.
Raise your hands if you still think it is a great idea to burn as much fuel in your personal vehicle as you can afford, no matter where it comes from.
Oh, I do. If it can fund more of these dick-measuring competitions between plutocrats, I’m all for it.
It’s fun to watch the rich act like six-year olds.
Idealogical enemies?
Do you know something about the Emir of Qatar Flashpoint that you would care to share?
I don’t know anything about him but I am not going to condemn him simply because he is an Arab or a Muslim or because he dresses differently than me.
He certainly seems like a capitalist and hasn’t that been a major complaint on this site by most people that we are straying from capitalism.
Call me any name you like, but I have a problem with hereditary monarchies getting fabulously wealthy thanks to nothing but luck and the west’s addiction to massive qualities of oil.
The Emir of Qatar didn’t accumulate his wealth through personal effort or anything else one could reasonably call capitalism. I could care less what religion he ascribes to.
John Horner :
June 6th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Call me any name you like, but I have a problem with hereditary monarchies getting fabulously wealthy thanks to nothing but luck and the west’s addiction to massive qualities of oil.
The Emir of Qatar didn’t accumulate his wealth through personal effort or anything else one could reasonably call capitalism. I could care less what religion he ascribes to.
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And that is why we should have a 90% inheritance tax for estates above 10 million dollars! It will help pay off the national dept while keeping capitalism fresh and alive.
The Emir of Qatar didn’t accumulate his wealth through personal effort.
Neither do 99.9% of other billionaires. Getting it for having your property sit upon a metric sh*t-ton of oil isn’t much different from marrying into wealth or inheriting it from your father.
I was going to leave a reply earlier but I decided not to because this one was too (!!) easy.
Later, I had to fill up my F150 and saw that it had gone up another nickel since my last fill up. Now I have plenty to say……..
BDB:
Looking at the top 20 richest people according to Forbes 2009 less than half the top 20 have inherited their fortunes. This includes four individuals in the top 20 who inherited their wealth from the same individual who made that fortune himself (Sam Walton). You have to go all the way down to number 7 to find the richest heir.
You can argue that a high percentage of the world’s wealth is inherited but that would require checking much further down the lengthy list. As many individuals at the top have made their own large fortunes and I expect the size of the fortune drops exponentially down the list you would have to find a statistically unlikely prevalence of inherited wealth lower than the top 20.
“The Emir of Qatar didn’t accumulate his wealth through personal effort”
So how is that different than say the Ford family?
So he’s guilty of the sin of having inherited something that puts him at an advantage to others.
Hmmm so I guess its also OK for those that hate America based on our perceived privileged lives.
I mean who among us gets to choose our parents nationality or race? If someones parents are rich is that a reason to dislike them?
I mean who among us gets to choose our parents nationality or race? If someones parents are rich is that a reason to dislike them?
I’m guessing that he, like most Americans, doesn’t like the notion of being dependent on other nations for essential elements of our economic well-being and transferring vast sums of money to those nations, who in turn buy up US assets and affect our sovereignty and generally warp our policies in ways that hurt this country in many ways.
And that is why we should have a 90% inheritance tax for estates above 10 million dollars! It will help pay off the national dept while keeping capitalism fresh and alive.
And this is why foundations and trusts were set up, in order for the truly wealthy to avoid taxes such as these. It’ll be the rest of us rubes who get caught up in the muck.
It’ll be the rest of us rubes who get caught up in the muck.
Who on here is worth $10 million?
*crickets*
That’s what I thought.
Also, someone worth over $10 million (only every dollar AFTER $10 million would be taxed, the first $10 million would be tax free, btw) is not “truly wealthy?”
Looks like “his highness” needs more fiber in his diet!
Your 90% inheritance tax is all well and good but you are forgetting that His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar is not subject to US tax code. Nor would anyone be with 10 million dollars. They would pick up and move somewhere “safe” like Monaco or Qatar, thus depriving the US gov from what little pickings it could manage to get over time. This would mean you and I would have to pick up the slack.
No thanks.
shiney2:
And that is why we should have a 90% inheritance tax for estates above 10 million dollars!
Great. All rich people would emigrate to China. No inheritance (or even gift) tax here.