plans by companies to sell stakes in juicy noncore assets have a reputation for being shareholderfriendly but pleasing investors isn’t chiefly what volkswagen ’s potential initial public offering of porsche is about vw on tuesday confirmed longrumored talks with its majority shareholder porsche se about an ipo of its sportscar brand porsche ag porsche se is an investment fund that consists of little more than its controlling vw stake it used to own its namesake manufacturer but lost direct control during the infamous 2008 short squeeze that briefly made vw the world’s most valuable company porsche se has made clear it would like the brand back