FILE PHOTO: A logo of German airlines Lufthansa is pictured next to a no-entry sign at Frankfurt Airport, Germany, March 12, 2020. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski
May 1, 2020
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Lufthansa <LHAG.DE> is negotiating a 10 billion euro ($10.98 billion) bailout that would result in Germany taking a 25.1% stake in the airline, weekly paper Der Spiegel said on Friday.
Of that total, 5.5 billion euros would be in the form of non-voting capital, for which the German government wants a coupon of 9%, the paper said.
A further 3.5 billion euros in loans would be provided by state bank Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KFW), the paper said, adding that Belgium, Austria and Switzerland might contribute towards the bailout.
Lufthansa declined to comment but a government source confirmed to Reuters that negotiations were ongoing.
Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, meanwhile, told the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper that “taxpayers can count on us not to conduct these talks naively” but declined to elaborate on how negotiations are progressing.
Reuters on Wednesday reported that Lufthansa is negotiating a 9 billion euro bailout, with loans from Austria, Germany and Switzerland amounting to 6 billion euros, with an equity component of about 3 billion euros, citing a source close to the matter.
(Reporting by Edward Taylor and Joseph Nasr; Editing by David Goodman)
