Porsche shares jump after Europe’s largest IPO in over a decade

Porsche shares made a strong start on Thursday after Volkswagen listed the sports car brand at a valuation of 75 billion euros ($72 billion)

Shares of Porsche gained as much as 5% after the initial public offering, which was one of Europe’s biggest listings on record and Germany’s second-biggest market debut.

Volkswagen priced the Porsche IPO at 82.50 euros ($80) a share, raising to near 9.4 billion euros, on Wednesday. The shares traded at around 85.50 on Thursday morning after hitting 86.78 euros.

According to Reuters Porsche’s valuation is up to 77.4 billion euros, close to the market capitalization of Volkswagen as a whole, which is worth about 80.1 billion euros.

Shares in Volkswagen were down 5.6% on Thursday morning amid broader market volatility.

Porsche’s IPO comes at a time when European listings face their worst year since 2009.

Nearly half the IPO proceeds will be distributed to shareholders, the company said in a statement. The rest will be used to help Volkswagen build electric vehicles.

Just as the industry is shifting to electric vehicles, the German automaker plans to spend more than $7 billion over the next five years to boost research and development and manufacturing in North America.

Volkswagen has said it wants a quarter of its sales to be electric vehicles by 2026.