Porsche Posts Loss, Better than Expected

German luxury carmaker Porsche release today its financial and sales results for the first nine months of the 2009-2010 fiscal year, which ends on July 31. Despite a note of optimism emanating from its press release, the 700 million euros loss is still a loss.

A better one, says Porsche, than expected, which resulted from restructuring expenses and the capital increase at Volkswagen, in which Porsche did not take part. Last year for instance, for the same period, Porsche reported a 4.2 billion euro profit.

"While the result in the prior year was above all influenced by positive effects from cash settled options relating to Volkswagen AG’s shares, the result for the reporting period has been strongly affected by the structural changes already reported in the six-month report," Porsche justifies the loss.

The carmaker now has a net liquidity loss better than the 6 billion euros reported on April 30, due to the fact that Volkswagen pumped 3.9 billion euros in Porsche Zwischenholding GmbH.

The financial outlook of the manufacturer has improved compared to the six months report, even if the overall result at the end of the fiscal year is expected to be a loss of one billion euros.

As for vehicles sold, Porsche found new owners for 53,605 vehicles, only 30 units less than for the same period last year. Porsche says that the increase in revenue, despite the near level sales numbers of the two compared periods, come from the sale of the new Panamera models.