A merger of German automakers Porsche and Volkswagen (VW) will not be completed this year as planned, but the two companies said on Thursday that they still intend to create a tie-up. The boards of the two companies concluded the merger “cannot be implemented within the time frame provided” due to legal proceedings against Porsche in Germany and the US for alleged market manipulation, Volkswagen said in a statement.
“Nevertheless, all parties remain committed to the goal of creating an integrated automotive group with Porsche and are convinced that this will take place,” it added.
Porsche stunned the auto manufacturing world in October 2008 when it announced that it had acquired 75 percent of Volkswagen, but the takeover move backfired against the backdrop of the financial crisis as Porsche racked up 9 billion euros in debt acquiring a controlling stake in Europe’s largest carmaker, and Volkswagen stepped in to save the sports car company.
However, the merger plans of the two companies have been frustrated by lawsuits from investors against the maker of 911 sports cars for allegedly causing them to suffer several billion US dollars in losses as a result of misleading comments on Porsche’s intentions to take over VW.
Volkswagen said that the legal proceedings “mean that it is currently impossible to quantify the economic risks of a merger and therefore to perform the valuation of Porsche SE required to determine the exchange ratio.”
Porsche said in its statement that allegations in the lawsuits are “unfounded.”
It added that the delay in the merger would force it to book significant writedowns on financial assets that would push it into the red over the first three quarters of the year. Porsche had booked a net profit of 149 million euros for the first half of the year.
Volkswagen said that a reevalution of the value of stock options caused by the delay in the merger “is expected to lead to a clearly positive contribution to Volkswagen AG’s financial result.”
The company posted a profit of 6.2 billion euros for the first six months of the year.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
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