Ex-Porsche CFO convicted in fraud case

Former Porsche chief financial officer Holger Haerter has been fined €630,000 by a German court for credit fraud in a criminal case over the refinancing of a €10bn loan during a failed bid to buy Volkswagen in 2009.

Haerter downplayed Porsche’s liquidity needs and failed to disclose the correct number of put options on Volkswagen (VW) shares Porsche held during negotiations with BNP Paribas about the lender’s €500m share of the syndicated loan, said Stuttgart Regional Court presiding Judge Roderich Martis yesterday.

“The information given by the defendants was wrong,” Judge Martis said.

“It doesn’t matter that they gave the correct information earlier in the process. It’s true also in normal life that a lie doesn’t disappear just because you once said the truth some time before.”

The case is the first criminal verdict in a string of proceedings related to the takeover bid in which Porsche was using an options strategy.

Stuttgart-based Porsche is also facing civil suits seeking a total of about €5.5bn in Germany, and prosecutors have extended their market-manipulation probe to cover the 2008 members of Porsche’s supervisory board.

“Many things said by the court today were wrong — we will appeal,” Haerter said after his conviction.

Porsche preferred shares dropped as much as 1.4% after the ruling.

In a separate indictment in December, prosecutors charged Haerter as well as former CEO Wendelin Wiedeking over the use of VW options in the bid. It hasn’t been decided yet whether that case should go to trial.

The head of Porsche’s finance unit was also convicted alongside Haerter. Christian N was fined €63,000.

Bloomberg