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Filed under: International markets, Earnings reports, Forecasts, Deals, Consumer experience, Competitive strategy

Despite a tumbling economy where recession fears gain ground each day, car demand is rising for at least one auto maker. It looks like even in a recession people continue to need cars, and the good times are rolling for carmaker Porsche SE which reported that its first-half profit rose 44%. For this period, the sports vehicle maker counted strong sales for its Cayenne sport-utility vehicles.

Porsche’s profit climbed to 1.3 billion euros ($1.97 billion), compared with 897 million euros in the same period last year. A stake increase in Europe’s biggest carmaker Volkswagen over the past two years made Porsche post a strong gain in its earnings numbers during the six months ended January 31.

Taking a look at the company’s first-half revenue, we see a growth of 14% to 3.49 billion euros as Cayenne’s first-half sales doubled to 20,340 SUVs, despite surging gasoline prices. The increase in Cayenne sales resulted in a 19% gain in overall deliveries. Thus, first half deliveries climbed up to 46,600 cars. The strong gains in Cayenne sales offset lower demand for the popular Porsche 911, whose sales fell 5.6% to 16,360.

Looking ahead, Porsche expects an increase in its car sales, lifted by higher emerging markets demand. Currently, the sports-car maker is spending 1 billion euros to develop a new four-door sports sedan model called the Panamera. Sales of the Panamera are expected to come in at 20,000. The company is also developing a hybrid-powered version of the Cayenne.

Porsche announced yesterday that its holding company, Porsche Automobil Holding SE has approved an increase in its stake in Volkswagen AG from 31% to more than 50%. Porsche was already the largest shareholder in Volkswagen prior to yesterday’s announcement.

Making comments on the news, Martin Winterkorn, Volkswagen CEO, believes that Porsche’s move to hold a majority stake proves confidence in Europe’s biggest carmaker.

Eliza Popescu is a financial writer for the on the internet investment advisory service Investor’s Observer.

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Filed under: Deals, Electronic Arts (ERTS)

As an observer of markets, I’m a massive fan of hostile takeovers. Like record-keeping frauds, activist campaigns and battles with short-sellers, they add some drama and conflict to a world that can sometimes seem a tiny too clubbish.

Thomson Financial’s Richard Peterson told the USA This day that there have been 13 hostile and unsolicited takeover bids so far this year — double last year and the most hostile bids this early in a year since the 19 in 1991. Hurrah!

You have to admit that watching Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO) and Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) trade barbs in the media is a lot more fun than a press releas announcing that two companies are “thrilled” to have combined their businesses after a few weeks of boardroom negotiations. Where’s the fun in that?

Matt Krantz writes that there are three factors that should lead to a continued increase in the number of hostile takeovers: beaten down stock prices make target companies more attractive, an increase in the number of 13-D filings shareholder activists pushing for changes at companies, and the difficulty many small/poorly-capitalized companies will likely face in raising capital in a tough debt market.

How can investors capitalize? There’s probably no good shortcut for predicting which stocks are about to receive takeover bids — corporate espionage aside — but buying undervalued companies with reasonable certainty of future profitability is probably a good place to begin. Good companies at good prices are the most likely takeover candidates.

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Filed under: Deals, Google (GOOG), Boston Scientific (BSX)

Current data advocates that America’s largest industrial companies are piling up cash. The New York Times reports: “According to S.& P., the total cash held by companies in its industrial index exceeded $600 billion in February, up from about $203 billion in 1998.”

That’s good news if the money does something other than sit in the bank. A number of very big companies like Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) don’t need anywhere near the tons of greenbacks in their accounts and they add more each quarter.

The money probably has two potential uses. One is to purchase other companies — as the market falls, there are going to be more deals at lower prices. Of course, many deals don’t work. Some of these will fail to find economies of scale and lead to write-offs like the Boston Scientific (NYSE: BSX) buyout of Guidant. Everyone lost as the BSX shares fell apart.

The second option is that companies could just do the easy thing and turn the cash back to shareholders. Everyone wins and it is hard to screw up a big one-time dividend.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com

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Filed under: Forecasts, Deals, Industry, Market matters

After all of the speak of splitting itself into two pieces, a “bad” part and a “good” part, Ambac (NYSE: ABK) will probably operate as only one company. The theory had been that the healthy muni-bond insurance operation should be separated from the business that insured more risky derivative instruments.

Breaking the company in half always had a number of complications, the worst of which is what would happen to common shareholders? Would they get shares in the “good” part of the business? Perhaps, but outside firms putting in money might want to keep that for themselves. Shares in the “bad” part of the business would probably be worthless.

Another issue is the legal troubles a split might cause. According to the FT, this raised the “possibility of lawsuits by banks and other groups that bought insurance on CDOs and other structured products.”

Ambak is nearly certainly going to have to live with its two businesses under that same roof. If the structured finance business continues to fall apart, the real question is how much more money will the insurance company have to raise.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 27wallst.com.

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Filed under: Deals, Bad news, Citigroup Inc. (C)

Citigroup (NYSE: C) may need more cash. The head of Dubai International Capital told Reuters that it would take “a lot more money” to rescue Citigroup following investments from Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed.

The statement has the benefit of probably being true. Citi is nearly certainly faced with more subprime losses and its derivative holdings of credit cards and munis plus LBO paper could lead the bank to have to write-off billions more in losses from these.

The question is where will the large bank go. Sovereign funds might not have an appetite for putting up more capital. US private equity firms might find the deal too risky. Things may get bad enough that the Fed will have to step in and give Citi a large loan to keep its balance sheet solid enough for the bank to remain solvent.

The “a lot more money” might come from taxpayers.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com

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Filed under: Deals, Rumors, TD AmeriTrade Holding (AMTD)

E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC) is naming its chairman, former JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) vice-chairman Donald Layton, to be the company’s new CEO.

The stock was trading up more than 5% on the news earlier, probably because of speculation of a possible sale. The Wall Street Journal reported [subscription required] that “E*Trade and Citadel have discussed the possibility of trying to find a buyer for the home-equity portfolio, which would lift a tremendous burden off E*Trade and could pave the way for a sale of the entire company, according to people familiar with the matter.”

But Mr. Layton told the Journal that selling the home-equity portfolio is not an option right now.

I think investors should, as always, be extremely cautious about buying shares in the company on takeover speculation. E*Trade’s woes — and declining share price — are hardly an unknown entity given its status as a poster child of subprime stupidity. The fact that Ameritrade (NASDAQ: AMTD) and other well-capitalized competitors, which had expressed interest in acquiring E*Trade before its precipitous decline in value aren’t stepping up with an offer, tells me all I need to know: there’s really no reason to think a deal is coming any time soon.

BloggingStocks’ Doug McIntyre wrote earlier today that “Citadel may want to sell the discount brokerage firm but that would cause potential problems with other E*Trade investors. What would be left over is a company with a big pool of mortgages which are still falling in value. Getting a return on the discount brokerage operation might be a good idea on paper but separating it from the balance of the company is no “slam dunk”. Shareholders don’t want to be left holding that mortgage bag.”

Unless you like E*Trade’s future as a stand-alone company, I’d give this stock wide berth.

In addition, the hopelessly transparent token insider buying at the company gives me concern that the company’s brass is more interested in playing the PR game than fixing the mess.

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