VW CEO praises Porsche alliance, sees 2009 profit

HAMBURG, Germany, April 23 (Reuters) - Volkswagen (VOWG.DE) Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn hailed cooperation with majority owner Porsche (PSHG_p.DE) and reiterated on Thursday he expected a group profit in 2009 despite a car market slump.

"Our integration has come a long way in the last few months and I am sure that we will be able to drive our partnership forward in 2009, a difficult year for the auto sector," he said in remarks prepared for VW's annual shareholders meeeting.

He said Porsche and VW together had the potential to become "the centre of power for the international automobile industry".

Only the sale of its heavy truck operations in Brazil kept VW, Europe's biggest carmaker, from slipping into a loss in the first quarter. It is challenging Japan's Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) to become the world's biggest automaker.

Porsche, controlled by the Porsche and Piech families, owns nearly 51 percent of Volkswagen's voting shares and plans to raise its stake to 75 percent as early as this year should economic conditions allow.

But analysts have increasing questioned whether Porsche can afford this step given its 9 billion euros ($11.72 billion) in net debt, prompting speculation that cash-rich VW could acquire Porsche's sports car business to relieve the debt burden.

Porsche, whose European holding company would still own VW under such a deal, has described this scenario as "highly unrealistic". [ID:nWEA7875]

(Reporting by Jan Schwartz; Writing by Michael Shields)