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BUSINESS

Emir of Qatar wants stake in Porsche

The hereditary leader of the natural-gas rich Persian Gulf state of Qatar has reportedly expressed interest in buying a stake in the highly-indebted automaker Porsche, Focus magazine reported in its new issue.

Emir of Qatar wants stake in Porsche
Photo: DPA

Stuttgart-based Porsche AG has €3.3 billion worth of debt in needs to repay in the next year at a time when global credit markets remain nearly frozen. In total, the maker of wold-famous sports cars has over €9 billion in debt and is having to make interest payments from using cash from its core business, which is suffering due to the global economic slowdown.

A deal with the Emir of Qatar would give the company access to cash that desperately needs to avoid a crunch, the magazine reported. The article did not mention how much the Emir hoped to invest in the company.

Porsche took on the mountain of debt to finance a takeover attempt of Wolfsburg-based Volkswagen AG, which is Europe’s largest carmaker and many times bigger than Porsche. Last week, media reports said a dramatic change of course was underway and Volkswagen might instead buy Porsche to relieve the smaller company of its debt burden. Currently, Porsche owns 50 percent of Volkswagen and has said it hopes to raise its stake to 75 percent.

In its new issue, Der Spiegel magazine reports that the Piëch family, which controls Porsche, wants to remove current Chief Executive Officer Wendelin Wiedeking and Chief Financial Officer Holger Härter in once the company’s debt issues are resolved.

“It’s not a question of years, rather it’s of a few months,” before the two are replaced, an unnamed source close to the family told Spiegel.

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BUSINESS

France’s EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

French energy giant EDF has unveiled net profit of €10billion and cut its massive debt by increasing nuclear production after problems forced some plants offline.

France's EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

EDF hailed an “exceptional” year after its loss of €17.9billion in 2022.

Sales slipped 2.6 percent to €139.7billion , but the group managed to slice debt by €10billion euros to €54.4billion.

EDF said however that it had booked a €12.9 billion depreciation linked to difficulties at its Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Britain.

The charge includes €11.2 billion for Hinkley Point assets and €1.7billion at its British subsidiary, EDF Energy, the group explained.

EDF announced last month a fresh delay and additional costs for the giant project hit by repeated cost overruns.

“The year was marked by many events, in particular by the recovery of production and the company’s mobilisation around production recovery,” CEO Luc Remont told reporters.

EDF put its strong showing down to a strong operational performance, notably a significant increase in nuclear generation in France at a time of historically high prices.

That followed a drop in nuclear output in France in 2022. The group had to deal with stress corrosion problems at some reactors while also facing government orders to limit price rises.

The French reactors last year produced around 320.4 TWh, in the upper range of expectations.

Nuclear production had slid back in 2022 to 279 TWh, its lowest level in three decades, because of the corrosion problems and maintenance changes after
the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hinkley Point C is one of a small number of European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) worldwide, an EDF-led design that has been plagued by cost overruns
running into billions of euros and years of construction delays.

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