Qatar buys 10% stake in Porsche

Barely a day after selling 42% of its stock to new parent company Volkswagen, Porsche sold yet another 10% share, this time to the Gulf state of Qatar.

The 10% Qatar purchase barely comes as a surprise to most observers considering that negotiations between the two have been on-going for well over four months now. What caught a lot of people off-guard was how fast Porsche was able to strike a deal with Qatar Holding LCC – a state-run investment firm that made the purchase in behalf of the wealthy Middle Eastern nation – when the ink hadn’t dried yet on the Volkswagen-Porsche merger.

Porsche’s deal with the Qatar gives the latter a 10% share on Porsche’s automotive unit and, in addition to that, another 17% percent share in Volkswagen, which was we’ve said, is now Porsche’s new parent company.

As part of the agreement between the two, Qatar is expected to pay up to $378.3 million to Porsche, which sadly needs all the money it can get after having accumulated a staggering $12 billion in debt over the years.