Porsche Does It Again: More Profits Than Sales. Obscenely More

Porsche presented the numbers for the first half of their fiscal 2008/2009. There is bad news and there is pornographic news, says Automobilwoche [sub]. The bad news is that Porsche is not immune against carmageddon: Their unit sales dropped 27 percent to 34K slot cars. In Euros, their sales dropped 12.8 percent to €3B.

Now for the pornographic part. On sales of €3B, Porsche reports a pre-tax profit of—hold on to whatever you can hold on to—€7.34B. In the same period last year, it was only €1.66B. How did they pull this off? You guessed it: The hedge fund with a sheet metal bending subsidiary earned €6.84B at the stock exchange, wheeling and dealing with stocks and derivatives. Why were Euro sales much better than unit sales?

Boxster sales nearly evaporated in anticipation of the new generation. The venerable 911 still continued to sell briskly; a buyer strike amongst perturbed hedge fund managers be damned.

At least Porsche can continue with impunity to focus on its core competency: options trades. As reported by the FAZ, BAFIN, not quite the German equivalent of the SEC, announced that they closed the proceedings against Porsche. “We could not find evidence of stock manipulation,” said a BAFIN spokesperson on March 31, 2009.(Source: www.thetruthaboutcars.com)