tu si..tu no....tu si...tu no..

[ramirez]

titolo strano ? beh decidete voi..a me sembra che il sistema tedesco
di dare fondi alle aziende in crisi...rifletta più argomentazioni
politiche che..economiche. Ma posso sbagliare..
.
Germany rejects loan request from Porsche
By Ralph Atkins in Frankfurt and Chris Bryant in Berlin

Published: May 21 2009 19:36 | Last updated: May 21 2009 19:36

Porsche, the sports car maker, on Thursday learnt an application for financial help had been rejected, at least temporarily, by the German government.

The Berlin economics ministry said Porsche’s request could not be granted at this stage. Its comments came as it unveiled its latest decisions on emergency support for German companies.

Porsche had asked for a loan in excess of €300m ($416m) from KfW, Germany’s state-owned development bank, but the carmaker denied that the move amounted to an application for state aid. KfW was only one of several banks with which it was in talks as part of a normal fund raising operation, it added. “This is a completely normal process,” Porsche said.

Wendelin Wiedeking, Porsche’s chief executive, has boasted about not accepting state subsidies.

Porsche, which owns more than 50 per cent of Volkswagen, was forced to give up its attempt to gain full control of Europe’s largest carmaker when it ran into difficulties amid a €9bn debt burden. Instead Porsche’s family owners agreed two weeks ago to start talks about an integration of Porsche into VW.

The economics ministry did not comment in detail on the Porsche decision, but those close to the talks said Berlin was reluctant to help Porsche at least partly because the car group was better placed than other German manufacturers to tap financial markets for funds.

The government is facing demands for help from across German industry. Arcandor, the ailing German department store operator, is seeking loan guarantees. The ministry, meanwhile, announced on Thursday it had given the go-ahead for Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, the printing press maker, to be granted KfW credit and guarantees – the biggest company so far to be offered help. No details were given.

To qualify for aid from the German government’s €115bn credit and loan-guarantee fund companies must prove they were not in economic difficulties before 30 June 2008 and would have good economic prospects when the crisis is over.

They must also show that they have exhausted all possible sources of credit and that they have an important regional, innovation or supply chain function.

This week, Hartmut Schauerte, a junior economics minister and member of chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party, told reporters that the issue of whether a company was in economic difficulties before the crisis was “the decisive question”.

However, he acknowledged that even if a company did not meet this condition the government might still face pressure to intervene, for example in the case of Opel, the German arm of General Motors.

“I can imagine . . . that there will also be political decisions.” Speaking before the Heidelberger decision, Mr Schauerte said 20 large companies applied for loan guarantees worth a total of €6bn. More than 1,100 applications for KfW loans have been received, worth about €4.5bn – more than a third in value from small and medium-sized businesses.