The German authorities has bought its remaining stake in Lufthansa to buyers that means that the airline group is now “absolutely again in non-public fingers”.
Lufthansa acquired a €9 billion rescue bundle from the German authorities’s Financial Stabilisation Fund (WSF) in Might 2020 because the Covid-19 pandemic left the airline group struggling to outlive. This funding settlement included the federal government taking a 20 per cent stake in Lufthansa.
The airline confirmed on Wednesday (14 September) that the German authorities had now bought its remaining 6.2 per cent stake within the group, which meant a “profitable completion” of the stabilisation course of.
The sale of this authorities shareholding has been accomplished effectively forward of the unique deadline of October 2023. The return to full non-public possession additionally frees Lufthansa from the commitments and restrictions made to the European Fee as a part of the rescue deal.
Lufthansa had already repaid all of the loans it acquired from the German authorities forward of schedule in November 2021.
Carsten Spohr, Lufthansa’s CEO, thanked the German authorities and taxpayers for supporting the airline group by way of “essentially the most extreme monetary disaster in our firm’s historical past”.
“The stabilisation of Lufthansa was profitable and can be paying off financially for the German authorities and thus for the taxpayer,” mentioned Spohr.
“This brings the stabilisation of Lufthansa to a profitable conclusion. Lufthansa is as soon as once more absolutely in non-public fingers. All Lufthansa workers worldwide will proceed to work laborious to strengthen our place among the many world’s main airline teams, for instance by way of a broad-based premium product and high quality offensive.”
In a separate announcement, Lufthansa Group has signed a memorandum of understanding with vitality group OMV for the availability of greater than 800,000 tonnes of sustainable aviation gas (SAF) from 2023 to 2030.
OMV has already been supplying SAF to the group’s Austrian Airways subsidiary at Vienna Worldwide airport since March 2022. The businesses now intend to “broaden their present partnership” by including new areas for SAF manufacturing and work collectively to develop new applied sciences.