German government sells remaining Lufthansa shares

BERLIN (Reuters) -The German authorities has bought off its 20% stake in Lufthansa acquired through the coronavirus pandemic, it mentioned on Tuesday.

The state’s financial stabilisation fund (WSF), which saved Lufthansa from chapter through the pandemic with a bailout package deal totalling 9 billion euros ($8.97 billion), had progressively lowered its stake lately with the purpose of offloading it utterly by October of 2023.

It has now bought its final remaining shares to worldwide traders in a block placement for 455 million euros, the fund mentioned in an announcement on Tuesday evening.

It earned a complete of 1.07 billion euros from promoting its shares, yielding a 760 million euro revenue from the funding.

“The federal government assist package deal efficiently helped the enterprise by means of the disaster,” it mentioned.

Deutsche Financial institution, one of many world coordinators and bookrunners for the sale alongside Goldman Sachs, mentioned earlier on Tuesday that the fund needed to supply institutional traders round 74.4 million Lufthansa shares, corresponding to six.2% of the airline’s share capital.

Lufthansa shares closed down 1.5% at 6.32 euros per share on Tuesday.

($1 = 1.0030 euros)

(Reporting by Victoria WalderseeEditing by Invoice Berkrot and Jonathan Oatis)