Porsche took pole position as Europe’s most valuable carmaker on Thursday, overtaking former parent Volkswagen as the sports car maker’s newly listed share price soared.
Although Porsche shares had fallen below their trading price on Monday to 81 euros, in line with a broader decline in markets, they rose to 93 euros ($91.95) on Thursday, giving the brand of sports cars a market valuation of 85,000 million euros.
They later dropped to €91.04, but the company’s valuation was still well above Volkswagen ‘s, which stood at just under €84 billion.
Porsche’s share price regained momentum after investment banks involved in its IPO bought nearly 3.8 million shares for €312.8 million as part of a so-called “greenshoe” option, designed to support a listing.
Volkswagen is the second most valuable automaker, with Mercedes-Benz third among European automakers with a valuation of €57.2 billion, followed by BMW at €47.5 billion and Stellantis at €39.7 billion.
“Inflation data from Europe and the United States, recent energy supply concerns in Europe and the escalation of the war in Ukraine last Thursday caused fluctuations that made small-scale stabilization measures necessary,” a Volkswagen spokesman said. .
Porsche is the fifth most valuable listed company in Germany, after Linde, SAP, Deutsche Telekom and Siemens, and the 25th most valuable stock in Europe, ahead of giants such as Glencore.
Shares purchased between September 29 and October 4 accounted for around 11% of total trading volume since listing, the spokesman added, consisting of around 34 million shares.
Overall, up to 14.85 million shares worth €1.2 billion are available through the “greenshoe” option within four weeks of the offering as a stabilization measure.
Bank of America bought the shares for between 81 and 82.50 euros, compared with the original issue price of 82.50, it said in a statement on Wednesday.
