Holger Härter likes to cultivate a different image to other chief financial officers. Both on Wednesday at the annual press conference of Porsche, the German sports carmaker, and in his company picture, he is photographed with scruffy-looking stubble.

He has also taken a different path to his colleagues, both in the car industry and elsewhere, by pursuing a financial strategy that has brought billions of euros of extra profits to Porsche and helped finance its audacious move on Volkswagen, the significantly bigger carmaker where it has become the largest shareholder with 31 per cent.