Porsche Automobil Holding SE (PAH3.XE) wants to plow the proceeds from the planned sale of its sports-car division to Volkswagen AG (VOW.XE) into investment in other automotive assets after it has paid back its remaining bank debt.

"The proceeds should mainly be used for further investments focusing on the automotive value chain," Porsche said Thursday in the agenda for its shareholder meeting published on the corporate website.

Porsche said it will adjust its corporate statutes to reflect a broader investment brief at the meeting scheduled for June 25.

A spokesman for Porsche said this was a precautionary move to keep all strategic options open for the time after the integration of Porsche's sports-car operation into Volkswagen has been completed. There are no concrete plans for outright acquisitions, he said.

Porsche sold a 49.9% stake in its sports-car unit to Volkswagen in 2009 as part of a complex deal to forge a combined company after its attempt to take over its much larger rival backfired amid ballooning debt in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

At the time, Porsche and Volkswagen mutually granted each other options to transfer the remaining 50.1% stake to Volkswagen if the initial plan for a merger including Porsche's holding firm doesn't work out. This initial plan was abandoned last year due to legal obstacles.

The sale of the remaining 50.1% stake in Porsche's sportscar unit is expected to be worth roughly EUR4 billion, substantially more than Porsche Holding's financial liabilities of EUR1.5 billion at the end of the first quarter.

Paying back the remaining debt would mark a turning point for Porsche's holding firm after it almost collapsed in 2009 under more than EUR10 billion in debt. Porsche's highly-leveraged and ultimately unsuccessful takeover of Volkswagen proved one of the most spectacular corporate maneuvers in recent years in Europe.

Porsche's holding firm, which is controlled by the Porsche and Piech families, ended up with a 50.7% voting stake in Volkswagen which forced out the Porsche management. Porsche's owner families agreed to a new merger deal under Volkswagen's leadership.

The timeframe for selling the Porsche sportscar unit, however, remains uncertain as both companies are still looking into possible alternatives to speed up the integration into Volkswagen's stable of eleven car, truck and motorbike brands.

Porsche's holding firm can exercise the put option to sell the remaining 50.1% of its sports car business, held through a company called Zwischenholding GmbH, between Nov. 15, 2012, and Jan. 14, 2013, or between Dec. 1, 2014, and Jan. 31, 2015.

Volkswagen can exercise the respective call option to buy the remaining 50.1% stake in Zwischenholding between March 1, 2013 and April 30, 2013, or between Aug. 1, 2014 and Sept. 30, 2014.

A key aspect of the evaluation is a potential tax charge of about EUR1 billion if Volkswagen and Porsche go ahead with the deal before mid-2014. But concluding the deal earlier would enable Volkswagen and Porsche to extract cost savings faster.

Porsche's preferred stock, its only traded securities, were 1.3% lower at EUR43.81 around 1345 GMT Thursday on the Frankfurt stock exchange.

-By Christoph Rauwald, Dow Jones Newswires; +49 69 29 725 512; christoph.rauwald@dowjones.com

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