FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - After price gains at the start of trading, Volkswagen's preference shares quickly turned negative on Wednesday. Billion-euro charges caused the shares to fall by 1.5 percent to 105 euros, making them the laggard in the leading Dax index. In early trading, they had still risen by just under 2 percent.

On Tuesday evening, the Wolfsburg-based company surprisingly announced that in 2024, instead of 7.0 to 7.5 percent of sales, only 6.5 to 7.0 percent of sales would be retained by the Volkswagen Group as operating profit. The Group would be hit by charges of 2.6 billion euros, including provisions of 0.9 billion euros already planned for staff reductions at the core VW Passenger Cars brand.

The 1.7 billion euros in costs, which have not yet been disclosed, correspond to a good half a percentage point of the operating margin (EBIT), said a dealer. This reflects the reduction in VW's margin target for this year.

Tim Rokossa from Deutsche Bank commented that the expenses for the closure of a factory in Brussels would involve severance payments for 3,000 employees, the production facilities and the plant itself. Analyst Michael Raab from Kepler Cheuvreux viewed this step positively. This is because Volkswagen is breaking an old taboo and this is tantamount to a change in corporate culture. "In our view, this is good news," said Raab.

The holding company Porsche SE, owned by the Porsche and Piech families, is now also expecting lower profits following the margin target cut by VW. Meanwhile, the shares of Porsche Holding were up slightly at just under 43 euros./bek/men/mis