The German government has sold its remaining stake in Lufthansa to investors meaning that the airline group is now “fully back in private hands”.
Lufthansa received a €9 billion rescue package from the German government’s Economic Stabilisation Fund (WSF) in May 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic left the airline group struggling to survive. This funding agreement included the government taking a 20 per cent stake in Lufthansa.
The airline confirmed on Wednesday (14 September) that the German government had now sold its remaining 6.2 per cent stake in the group, which meant a “successful completion” of the stabilisation process.
The sale of this government shareholding has been completed well ahead of the original deadline of October 2023. The return to full private ownership also frees Lufthansa from the commitments and restrictions made to the European Commission as part of the rescue deal.
Lufthansa had already repaid all the loans it received from the German government ahead of schedule in November 2021.
Carsten Spohr, Lufthansa’s CEO, thanked the German government and taxpayers for supporting the airline group through “the most severe financial crisis in our company's history”.
“The stabilisation of Lufthansa was successful and is also paying off financially for the German government and thus for the taxpayer,” said Spohr.
“This brings the stabilisation of Lufthansa to a successful conclusion. Lufthansa is once again fully in private hands. All Lufthansa employees worldwide will continue to work hard to strengthen our position among the world's leading airline groups, for example through a broad-based premium product and quality offensive.”
In a separate announcement, Lufthansa Group has signed a memorandum of understanding with energy group OMV for the supply of more than 800,000 tonnes of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from 2023 to 2030.
OMV has already been supplying SAF to the group’s Austrian Airlines subsidiary at Vienna International airport since March 2022. The companies now intend to "expand their existing partnership" by adding new locations for SAF production and work together to develop new technologies.