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Viknesh Vijayenthiran

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Vik is an Editor at High Gear Media and contributor for a number of sites within the High Gear Media network. He was a co-founder of... More

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2010 Porsche Panamera

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Earlier this year we reported on Porsche's financial troubles and the company’s attempts to seek a lifeline from both the German government and outside investors - namely in the form of an investment from the Gulf state of Qatar.

It has now been revealed that Porsche was forced to sell assets worth billions of dollars to Qatar in a move to prop up its strained finances. Qatar Holding LLC will is set to acquire a 10% voting stake in Porsche as well as most of its cash-settled options for a stake in Volkswagen. This means that an entity outside of the Porsche controlling families will have a say in the future of the company for the first time since it started building branded cars in 1948.

Under the deal, Qatar Holding will also get cash-settled options on Volkswagen shares which Porsche said would free up more than $1 billion. The Qatar-based investment group has said in a statement that it planned to use the options to acquire 17% of Volkswagen’s ordinary shares, making it the third-largest shareholder in Europe's biggest automaker after Porsche and the German state of Lower Saxony.

Qatar Holding isn’t the only group getting a piece of the Porsche pie. A 42% stake in the company has also been sold to Volkswagen for roughly $4.7 billion.

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