Shares in Porsche rose after the Gulf¹ state of Qatar agreed to take a stake in the the German carmaker.

海湾国家卡塔尔同意入股德国汽车商保时捷之后，其股价上升。

The Porsche and Piech families are giving up some control of the firm

Porsche shares gained 8% to 48.50 euros. Qatar will buy 10% of the shares held by the family that controls Porsche, taking a voting stake（赌注，奖金）.

The deal is part of the agreement between Volkswagen (VW) and Porsche under which they will merge²（合并，消失） by 2011, ending months of bitter feuding（不和，争执）.

Qatar will eventually become the carmaker's third biggest shareholder³.

The two biggest shareholders⁴ will be the Porsche and Piech families and the German state of Lower Saxony.

As part of the terms of the deal, Qatar will also buy the majority of Porsche's stock options in VW, which gives the Gulf state the rights to a 17% stake in VW that was agreed last week.

"Exercising the options would result in Qatar becoming Volkswagen's third anchor（锚） shareholder," Porsche and VW said on Thursday when they announced the merger⁵.

Shares in VW dropped 15% to 192 euros, the lowest in over a year.

Porsche did not say how much Qatar had paid for both the shares and the stock options in VW.

Merger agreement

Under the terms of the merger finally agreed on Thursday, VW will initially⁶ buy a 42% stake in Porsche by the end of this year for 3.3bn euros ($4.7bn; £2.8bn).

Porsche had failed in its long-running attempt to take over VW, despite Porsche building a 51% holding in the company.

Instead, the carmaker ended up saddled with huge debts as it attempted to build up a 75% stake, after the global financial crisis and the slump⁷ in the global automotive sector⁸.

The deal with Qatar is part of Porsche's attempts to shore up its finances following months of merger negotiations⁹.

Porsche will now effectively become the 10th brand in the VW family, joining the likes of Audi, Seat and Skoda.