Investor Kühne already holds more than 15 percent of Lufthansa. And the 85-year-old is already looking for ways to increase the share. It would be conceivable to take over the state shares. But political considerations would probably stand in the way of this.
The largest Lufthansa shareholder Klaus-Michael Kühne now wants to further increase his stake in the airline. “Our interest in Deutsche Lufthansa AG is unbroken,” said the Hamburg billionaire, according to a statement from his Kühne Holding AG. He recently had a “constructive discussion” with Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr and supervisory board chairman Karl-Ludwig Kley and “therefore joined the intention to acquire further Lufthansa shares when opportunities arise”. Kühne Holding did not explain where the shares should come from. The 85-year-old already holds 15.01 percent in Lufthansa.
Only recently, Kühne rejected a takeover of the remaining state share of almost ten percent in Lufthansa. “In principle I would be interested, but such an increase is not up for discussion,” he told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. “We would then have a blocking minority of 25 percent. That is probably not politically enforceable.” The federal government must sell its Lufthansa stake acquired during the Corona crisis by 2023 at the latest.
The Federal Cartel Office recently gave the go-ahead for the recent increase in the stake to 15.01 percent. We could burn our fingers with every percentage point more,” Kuehne warned in the “FAZ” interview. It was initially unclear what triggered his change of heart. Kuehne is the owner of the Swiss forwarding company Kuehne Nagel and the main shareholder of the Hapag-Lloyd shipping company.
It had previously become known that the MDAX group and the Vereinigung Cockpit pilots’ union had reached an agreement in their wage dispute. A strike planned for tomorrow, Wednesday, has thus become obsolete. “A comprehensive package of monetary and structural issues has been agreed in essence and is awaiting elaboration in the coming days,” said the pilots’ union. “We are pleased that a result could be achieved at the negotiating table.” “Important first steps towards sustainable cooperation” were taken on Tuesday.
Actually, VC had demanded, among other things, 5.5 percent more wages by the end of the year and from January 2023 another 8.2 percent more money. Lufthansa had announced an “improved offer” for the negotiations on Tuesday. An increase of EUR 500 on September 1, 2022 and EUR 400 on April 1, 2023 had previously been offered. In view of the inflation, “significant pay increases” are quite appropriate, said Lufthansa boss Carsten Spohr in the run-up to the new talks. However, it is in everyone’s interest “that there is finally a coexistence here that can do without these numerous collective bargaining conflicts,” he warned.
At the beginning of August, the airline reported black figures for the second quarter for the first time since the beginning of the corona pandemic. The group posted a net profit of 259 million euros between April and the end of June, after a minus 756 million euros in the same period last year. Sales amounted to 8.5 billion euros – almost three times as much as in the same period last year. The result was mainly driven by the logistics division, the individual airlines such as Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines and Eurowings remained in the red. Lufthansa is now expecting an annual operating result of at least 500 million euros. In the second half of the year, the company wants to hire around 5,000 new people. The group had nevertheless cut over 30,000 jobs since 2020.
