The Most Expensive Porsche in the World

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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The Most Expensive Porsche in the World

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A new Porsche can cost as much as $300,000. It does not appear to matter. Porsche dealers have very small inventories due to low supply and high demand. Some even charge well above the manufacturer’s suggested retail price. Porsche will go public soon. It will command a $75 billion market capitalization as its initial public offering goes to market. The figure is extraordinary, given that Porsche is nowhere near the largest car company in the world based on unit sales.

Porsche’s revenue stands at about $8 billion, and its profits are just below $1.5 billion. That profit margin is close to unprecedented.

Volkswagen, Porsche’s parent, already has lined up buyers for the shares from several sovereign wealth funds and institutional investors. This means the $75 billion is all but locked in.

The IPO shows the extent that the brand can be valued well above unit sales. Ford and General Motors have valuations in the $60 billion range. Porsche, truly a niche manufacturer, sells a fraction of their volume.
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Porsche is another reminder of why Tesla’s market cap is near $1 trillion. Brand counts. So does a moat that keeps other car companies from competing. Porsche builds some of the fastest cars in the world. And the components and workmanship cannot be matched by other brands, with the exception of Rolls Royce and a few other ultra sports car manufacturers.
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Porsche does share something with companies like GM and VW. It was founded in 1931 by a single inventor, Ferdinand Porsche. Most of the early models and the foundation of the current ones belong to him.
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Porsche is an example of how much brands matter. Regardless of what happens to the car market worldwide, its sales will never approach those of such famous luxury car companies as BMW, Mercedes and Audi. Investors do not care.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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