The German Federal state has reduced its stake in Lufthansa Group from 14.1% to less than 10%.
This comes two years after it provided EUR6 billion euros (USD6.09 billion) in European Commission-sanctioned pandemic support for a 20% stake in the nation’s biggest airline.
Berlin will sell its remaining stake by October 2023 at the latest, according to an announcement by the Federal Finance Agency (Finanzagentur des Bundes).
The agency administers Germany’s Economic Stabilisation Fund (Wirtschaftsstabilisierungsfonds - WSF), through which Lufthansa, in June 2020, received EUR 5.7 billion (USD5.79 billion) via silent participation and EUR300 million (USD304 million) for the acquisition of shares, resulting in the German state – through the WSF – holding a 20% stake. The recapitalisation measure was part of a larger support package that also included a state guarantee on a EUR3 billion (USD3.04 million) loan.
The aid package helped Lufthansa through the COVID-19 crisis that had resulted in record losses in 2020 of EUR6.7 billion (USD6.8 billion).
The agency said the Lufthansa Group managed to repay the EUR5.7 billion to the WSF by November 2021. Through a partial sale of its shares and subsequent participation in a capital increase in 2021, the WSF had already reduced its stake to 14.09%.
It said the proceeds from the sale of shares had exceeded the amount the WSF had paid for the stake. The fund had now "turned onto the home straight” to end Lufthansa’s stabilisation support, remarked Jutta Dönges, managing director of the finance agency.
As reported, German billionaire Klaus-Michael Kühne is now the largest Lufthansa shareholder with more than 15%.
