Profitable bailout
Bund is out at Lufthansa
09/14/2022, 12:36 am
In order to save Lufthansa from the Corona crisis, the federal government is buying into the airline on a large scale in summer 2020. He later gradually brought his shares back to the market. The last block of shares has now been sold. It was worth it for the state.
After a good two years, the federal government left Lufthansa again – with a handsome profit. The state economic stabilization fund (WSF) placed the remaining 74.4 million Lufthansa shares with international investors on Tuesday evening for a total of 455 million euros, the federal finance agency announced. The WSF had saved the airline in the Corona crisis in 2020 with silent participations and a shareholding of 20 percent.
With the sale of the shares, the WSF earned a total of 1.07 billion euros. The bottom line is a profit of 760 million euros remained, calculated the finance agency. Lufthansa had already repaid the silent participations in autumn 2021. “The participation of the WSF ends with this pleasing balance sheet and the company is back in private hands,” said the outgoing head of the finance agency, Jutta Dönges, who is responsible for the WSF. This completes the stabilization of Lufthansa.
The state is getting out earlier than it had set itself the goal: the WSF was actually not supposed to sell the remaining shares until autumn 2023. Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs placed the last package of 6.2 percent at a price of EUR 6.11 per share. That’s 3.4 percent less than Tuesday’s Xetra closing price of EUR 6.32. The federal government acquired the shares at a par value of 2.56 each. At the end of July he had already reduced his stake to less than ten percent, since then he has apparently thrown more shares onto the market in smaller numbers and melted the stake.