Audi earnings will help VW buy these
Audi's recent financial success - it is expecting to post a strong operating profit for 2009 - will help parent company VW to find the funds to pay for its
takeover of Porsche
More than three-quarters of the VW Group's 12.3 billion euros (£10.4bn) of liquid funds come from Audi's coffers.
But while Porsche's future owners appear to have no worries over money, Porsche's current shareholders - which include members of the Porsche family and VW chairman Ferdinand Piech - are under intense financial pressure.
The CEO of Deutsche Bank, Josef Ackermann, told German magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday that Porsche's owners need urgently to inject some serious cash into the company to control the level of debt, which has reportedly spiralled to 14 billion euros, up from 9.4 billion euros in January.
Porsche announced last week that it would increase its capital by at least 5 billion euros prior to its planned merger with VW, but Ackermann suggested that would not be enough to cover Porsche's pressing financial obligations.