Can someone give me footnotes on what happened here? I knew Porsche was trying to take over VAG, but what happened? And shouldn't eclipsing 50% ownership give them superior equity privileges?
If you're too lazy to read up all the articles MacGuffin linked, here's a rough overview of what happened in layman's terms (written by a layman, me, in another thread some weeks ago, so don't expect accuracy in all the details):
Porsche's whole idea of taking over VW started when the crisis was in full swing and VW stock dropped. They figured that they could simply borrow money cheaply, buy VW, and then pay the money back from VW's cash reserves.
The problem is that when the state of Lower-Saxony, who owned VW until 1960, sold it off, they passed a law that states that no matter how many shares a single party owns, this party's vote will be limited to 20%, the same the state of Lower-Saxony has. With the State of Lower Saxony having the same voting power as any given third party, they, together with the worker's council, can block any descision, like, for example, granting Porsche acess to VW's cash reserve.
Porsche's CEO now gambled that a EU court would overthrow this law, thus giving them control of the already-bought company. Sadly, he underestimated the creativity of Lower-Saxony's ruling conservative party: Using a loophole in german stock coropration law, they changed the majority of votes needed in the shareholder's meeting from the standard 75% to 80%, which gives them, holding 20
.2% of stock the same rights as before without violating EU rules. Thus, Porsche is fucked for now.
The EU already has taken Lower-Saxony to court over the new law as it obviously serves the sole purpose of circumventing a prior court ruling, but until that's decided, VW most likely bought Porsche themselves, or some Sheik did...