Kuehne+Nagel majority owner Klaus-Michael Kuehne has increased his stake in German airline Lufthansa to 15% to become the airline’s largest shareholder. In a shareholder notification on its website, Lufthansa said that Kühne’s share in the business had increased from 10% to 15.01% on July 5.
Kühne, Honorary Chairman of Kuehne+Nagel with over 52 percent stake, had increased his stake to above 10% in Lufthansa as recently as April.
Kühne’s holding will total 179,442,395 shares out of Lufthansa’s outstanding shares of 1,195,485,644, the notification said. Kühne has thus become the majority shareholder of Lufthansa with the German government through Wirtschaftsstabilisierungsfonds (WSF) holding 14.09%. As of June 30, 2022, major shares by nationality were: Germany (81.8 percent), USA (6.6 percent) and Ireland (2.6 percent).
He is now the second largest shareholder in the airline behind the German state, which owns 14.1% through Germany’s Economic Stabilisation Fund (WSF), after it stepped in with a rescue package during the pandemic. As well as his investment in Lufthansa, Kuehne has a 53% stake in freight forwarder Kuehne+Nagel, where he is also honorary chair, and owns 30% of shipping line Hapag-Lloyd.
Lufthansa is obliged by the Aviation Compliance Documentation Act to publish its shareholder structure by nationality every three months and after convening the Annual General Meeting in order to prove, as required by bilateral air traffic agreements and EU directives, that the company is under German or European control.
Lufthansa Cargo doing well The Lufthansa Group’s cargo business continued to perform very well in the first quarter of 2022. Capacity (available cargo tonne-kilometres) was up 24 percent year-on-year to 3.14 billion due to increased belly capacities even though it was still below its pre-crisis level. Sales (revenue cargo tonne-kilometres) rose by 10 percent to 2.13 billion. Traffic revenue in the cargo business increased 50 percent to €1.3 billion ($1.3 billion). Adjusted EBIT of €495 million (previous year: €315 million) was the highest ever in the first quarter.
