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Porsche's financial hack

posted by Jason Kottke Jan 12, 2009

I mentioned the Porsche/VW financial incident briefly in October, but this is an excellent layman's explanation of what happened.

Porsche's move took three years of careful maneuvering. It was darkly brilliant, a wealth transfer ingeniously conceived like few we've ever seen. Betting the right way, Porsche roiled the financial markets and took the hedge funds for a fortune.

(via capn design)

Update: Not so fast there, Porsche. Bloomberg says that the company may not have the money necessary to exercise those options and realize $24.3 billion in profits.

Update (10/2014): In a stunning reversal, VW ended up buying Porsche instead of the other way around. Here's the whole story.