By Ludwig Burger
FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Porsche Automobil Holding SE said on Monday it is part of an investor group that is taking a 35% stake in Flix SE, owner of Greyhound services in North America and FlixBus in Europe.
Porsche, which controls German carmaker Volkswagen, said it was co-investing with private equity firm EQT and investor Klaus-Michael Kuehne, among others, and that its stake in Flix SE was worth a “low double-digit million” euros.
EQT in July announced the joint investment of a 35% stake in Flix, at the time disclosing Kuehne as co-investor but not Porsche.
A person familiar with the deal told Reuters in July that the group was paying more than 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) between them, which means Porsche’s stake would be very small.
The deal values the unlisted bus operator at more than 3 billion euros, the sources said at the time.
Porsche said in its statement on Monday that cooperating with leading private equity investors was part of its strategy and that the deal marked its first investment “in a platform provider in the consumer segment”.
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger, editing by Thomas Seythal and Susan Fenton)
