Porsche becomes Europe’s largest carmaker after its IPO

Porsche has overtaken Volkswagen after its IPO and has become the most capitalized European carmaker after its share price soared. Porsche also remains the 25th most capitalized company in Europe and the 5th largest listed company in Germany. This was reported by Reuters on Thursday, after Porsche’s shares recovered from an initial decline.

Stock Market Listing: A Bold Move

For most of the year, many companies avoided an IPO due to prevailing macroeconomic conditions. The energy crisis, rising interest rates and record inflation pulled the market down.

The decision by VW Group, Porsche’s parent company, to move forward with its IPO, as announced in February, was always going to have consequences. The bold move turned out to be the largest IPO in Europe since miner Glencore Plc.

For its IPO in September, Porsche priced 911 million common and preferred shares at an average price of 82.50 euros. Following a general market rout, the shares initially fell on Monday to 81 euros, a price below their IPO price. However, it reached 93 euros on Thursday before settling at 91 euros.

It seems that Porsche’s share price recovered after the initial drop because the investment banks involved in its IPO injected funds. One of them, Bank of America, supported the stock by buying shares between the listing date and October 4. Together, the banks bought 3.8 million shares for a total of 312.8 million euros.

Comparison between Porsche and other European car manufacturers

After the successful IPO, the stock market valuation of the car manufacturer Porsche has risen to about 84 billion euros. In comparison, Volkswagen has a valuation of 77.7 billion euros. What is interesting is that Porsche sells about 300,000 cars per year, while Volkswagen sells about 10 million.

The rest of the top 5 European carmakers are Mercedes, BMW and Stellantis. Mercedes-Benz is in third place with a market valuation of 57.2 billion euros. BMW is the fourth European carmaker on the list with 47.5 billion euros, while Stellantis is fifth with a valuation of 39.7 billion.

Meanwhile, Porsche is working on its most important vehicle to date. The car, K1, will be an all-electric three-row SUV. It could be available for sale as early as 2026.