investor-man Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 What's the likelihood that there is a temporary ban placed on VW sales in the U.S. as a punitive action? Like, what if they had to pay a fine and weren't allowed to sell autos in the U.S. for the next 5 years? Is there a precedent for temporary bans of product sales of regulation infractions? I seem to recall something like this happening before, but I can't place the company/product. Just curious if it could happen here which would have a large impact on those expected earnings. that'd put a lot of locally owned VW dealerships out of business. Unlikely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supertutti Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-22/putting-a-price-on-volkswagen-s-diesel-emission-fraud-liability Here is Bloomberg's guess at overall liability. $7b or so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurgis Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 They'll definitely be needing a new CEO *cough* Marchionne *cough* merger Merger for a company in the middle of a legal controversy is very unlikely. Top brass is too busy and nobody wants to buy unknown liabilities. They might have to sell some of their untainted brands if legal hit becomes too big. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbarberayr Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 I don't think bankrupted. The company is too important to Germany and Merkel won't let that happen. The US needs Germany on-side for bigger problems. Plus, VW is investing $1 billion in Tennessee and employ over 3,200 employees - http://www.volkswagengroupamerica.com/facts.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feynmanresearch Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-22/putting-a-price-on-volkswagen-s-diesel-emission-fraud-liability Here is Bloomberg's guess at overall liability. $7b or so. I looked at that article and to me it seems to be a liberal estimate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyten1 Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 another piece of info, i read some people got goverment subsidy/rebate for buying these supposedly environmentally friendly vehicles, those obviously need to be paid back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cdogstu99 Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 Porsche is down equally as hard. I believe they own a large stake in VW. Maybe another way to play this... Yup Porsche Holdings (POAHY) has controlling interest in the company with a rough 31% equity ownership. Porsche is dealing with a couple of lawsuits of its own relating to manipulation of shares back when it tried to take out VW in '08. To date all the lawsuits have been squashed but a few pending which if successful would carry liabilities roughly equal to their cash position of $2.5 Billion. Also own a 10% stake in an automotive tech company (INRIX). The shares trade at a rough 25% discount to market value due to a holding company discount and because of the pending lawsuits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Novak Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 I'm just saying that the individual consumer has no motivation to sue. He will not notice the extra pollution coming out of his tailpipe, yet he will notice the other benefits. I think the largest pool of damages will be when people get their cars recalled and the software is fixed to reduce emissions (people may not have the choice of dodging the fix if they want their emissions renewed or ever take their car to a dealership for maintenance). The loss of power and mileage creates real damage. Buyers were sold a car with a given amount of horsepower and fuel efficiency and both of those might both be reduced significantly. The Hyundai / Kia settlement sets a bit of comparable for this, but it feels like this one might be much bigger. Perhaps refunds will be required - who knows. My intuition is that it will be at least a couple weeks until the stock hits a bottom. There is going to be more and more bad news for a while, e.g., statements from various governments making it sound like they're going to throw the book at VLKAY. In the end, though, this will be an opportunity to buy stock (if this is the extent of what they did). Novak Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilson-TPC Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 Sentiment is definitely bad, but everyone will have to wait and see how this plays out. Experience tells me that this usually gets worse, sentiment hits rock bottom, and stock is priced to illogical levels. This is a bad industry though imo, so we will see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
intothebreach Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 I think we're going to see headlines like this one for a while: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/ny-man-sues-volkswagen-emissions-scandal-reason-bought/story?id=33951902 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Picasso Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 If anything, this all highlights how much of a lousy business the car business is. Imagine if GM or Fiat pulled this crap? At least VW had $60 billion of market cap to lose. GM or Fiat don't have that kind of luxury. I've been laughing a bit this week at how bizarre the news event have been. I mean who expect some young baby faced ex-hedge fund guy would kill VRX stock by being such a douche about price hikes. His face is all over Reddit, you'd think he killed Cecil the Lion's cubs. Heaven forbid social media decides to go after Valeant in the same fashion. Such a strange investment world we live in. Someone probably thought Malaysia airlines was a good value investment then poof a plane just disappears. I'm sticking to investing in securities that even Simple Jack couldn't screw up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adesigar Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-22/putting-a-price-on-volkswagen-s-diesel-emission-fraud-liability Here is Bloomberg's guess at overall liability. $7b or so. I looked at that article and to me it seems to be a liberal estimate http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/22/news/vw-recall-diesel/ this one states "Volkswagen could in theory face fines of up to $18 billion in the U.S. alone" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Grey512 Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 If anything, this all highlights how much of a lousy business the car business is. Imagine if GM or Fiat pulled this crap? At least VW had $60 billion of market cap to lose. GM or Fiat don't have that kind of luxury. I've been laughing a bit this week at how bizarre the news event have been. I mean who expect some young baby faced ex-hedge fund guy would kill VRX stock by being such a douche about price hikes. His face is all over Reddit, you'd think he killed Cecil the Lion's cubs. Heaven forbid social media decides to go after Valeant in the same fashion. Such a strange investment world we live in. Someone probably thought Malaysia airlines was a good value investment then poof a plane just disappears. I'm sticking to investing in securities that even Simple Jack couldn't screw up. Best thing I've read today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mephistopheles Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 Today, Donald Trump expressed outrage over this scandal. He vowed to deport all 11 million illegal Volkswagens, build a giant wall across Berlin, and make Germany pay for it all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurgis Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 If anything, this all highlights how much of a lousy business the car business is. Imagine if GM or Fiat pulled this crap? At least VW had $60 billion of market cap to lose. GM or Fiat don't have that kind of luxury. I've been laughing a bit this week at how bizarre the news event have been. I mean who expect some young baby faced ex-hedge fund guy would kill VRX stock by being such a douche about price hikes. His face is all over Reddit, you'd think he killed Cecil the Lion's cubs. Heaven forbid social media decides to go after Valeant in the same fashion. Such a strange investment world we live in. Someone probably thought Malaysia airlines was a good value investment then poof a plane just disappears. I'm sticking to investing in securities that even Simple Jack couldn't screw up. Right. This is one of the reasons why I hesitate to invest into GM or FCAU. It seems that car companies are hit by legal issues quite often. So can one discard the settlements and recalls as one offs or should we allocate some percentage of earnings towards this? With software becoming a bigger part of a car all the time, will we have more problems per year? It's also strange that AAPL and GOOGL want to get into this business. I guess they have cash to burn. As consumer, I am happy. As shareholder, probably not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RadMan24 Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 This is 10x bigger than GM's recall issue. I'm waiting for more details, I think the CEO is one of who doesn't like to hear bad news...remember citing senior management on this, can't remember source so take it with a grain of salt. But damn...this ruins reputations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uccmal Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 Today, Donald Trump expressed outrage over this scandal. He vowed to deport all 11 million illegal Volkswagens, build a giant wall across Berlin, and make Germany pay for it all. Lol... and Scott Walker quit the race over it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uccmal Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 If anything, this all highlights how much of a lousy business the car business is. Imagine if GM or Fiat pulled this crap? At least VW had $60 billion of market cap to lose. GM or Fiat don't have that kind of luxury. I've been laughing a bit this week at how bizarre the news event have been. I mean who expect some young baby faced ex-hedge fund guy would kill VRX stock by being such a douche about price hikes. His face is all over Reddit, you'd think he killed Cecil the Lion's cubs. Heaven forbid social media decides to go after Valeant in the same fashion. Such a strange investment world we live in. Someone probably thought Malaysia airlines was a good value investment then poof a plane just disappears. I'm sticking to investing in securities that even Simple Jack couldn't screw up. Right. This is one of the reasons why I hesitate to invest into GM or FCAU. It seems that car companies are hit by legal issues quite often. So can one discard the settlements and recalls as one offs or should we allocate some percentage of earnings towards this? With software becoming a bigger part of a car all the time, will we have more problems per year? It's also strange that AAPL and GOOGL want to get into this business. I guess they have cash to burn. As consumer, I am happy. As shareholder, probably not. AAPL and Google: They are both arrogant. They should just pay it out to shareholders, all of it before they waste it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkbabang Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 Today, Donald Trump expressed outrage over this scandal. He vowed to deport all 11 million illegal Volkswagens, build a giant wall across Berlin, and make Germany pay for it all. Yes it is those damn immigrant cars coming here from other countries ruining everything. Bernie Sanders agrees with him and added "Do we really need 57 different kind of cars to choose from when there are people who are hungry?" Along with a "people's deodorant", we also need a "people's car" (only in English not German). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikhil25 Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 If the CEO didn't know about this he is incompetent and should be fired, now. If he knew about it he will be going to jail, and be fired. Violating environmental regs. knowingly - how stupid could you be? Winterkorn just stepped down; claims he wasn't aware of any wrongdoing http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-23/volkswagen-ceo-winterkorn-steps-down-over-emissions-scandal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Hjorth Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 [... Along with a "people's deodorant", we also need a "people's car" (only in English not German). Good humor! ;D Primary source for Niknil25's post: http://www.volkswagenag.com/content/vwcorp/info_center/en/news/2015/09/AR_Erklaerung.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuch Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 VW generates something like $13-$14B in operating profit, has $100B in cash and $135B in debt. The operating companies should probably be worth at least $140B since they include Lamborghini, Ducati, Audi, Bentley, and Porsche. I think they could likely sell some of these brands off if they needed to raise cash. I would assume Porsche (16-18% operating margins) , or Audi (10% operating margins) could conservatively get 8x EBIT if they were sold. This would suggest the stock should be $200/share before the discovery of emission fraud. At $119 the market is implying $80/share x 500M shares = $40B of losses. I have no idea what the ultimate losses will be but $40B seems like a substantial sum. ($ = euro since I coudn't find euro key). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Hjorth Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 Statement from the Executive Committee of Volkswagen AG’s Supervisory Board: http://www.volkswagenag.com/content/vwcorp/info_center/en/news/2015/09/AR_Erklaerung.html [now changed and elaborated] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Viking Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 The CEO claims he knew nothing... U.S. Regulators threatened to ban all sales of Volkswagen diesel vehicles back in July (I think I read). If true, this news surely would have reached the CEO back in Germany months ago that there was a serious problem. Claiming he knew nothing is not very believable to me. How they deal with things internally will be important. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blainehodder Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 The CEO claims he knew nothing... U.S. Regulators threatened to ban all sales of Volkswagen diesel vehicles back in July (I think I read). If true, this news surely would have reached the CEO back in Germany months ago that there was a serious problem. Claiming he knew nothing is not very believable to me. How they deal with things internally will be important. Interestingly, while the CEO may have not known, his background is interesting given the issue is with catalytic converters: [1] Winterkorn studied metallurgy and metal physics at the University of Stuttgart from 1966 to 1973. From 1973 to 1977 he was a PhD student at the Max-Planck-Institute for Metal Research and Metal Physics, where he received his doctorate in 1977. Winterkorn embarked on his career in 1977, as a specialist assistant in the research division "Process Engineering" at Robert Bosch GmbH.[4] From 1978 to 1981, he headed the refrigerant compressor development group "Substances and Processes" at Robert Bosch and Bosch-Siemens-Hausgeräte GmbH. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Winterkorn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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