Expatica news

German postal shares put up for sale

10 December 2003

BONN – The German state development bank KfW said Wednesday it was selling EUR two billion worth of shares in the German postal group Deutsche Post.

Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau is to sell a combination of shares and convertible bonds in Europe’s largest postal service at between EUR 15.80 euros and EUR 16.70 each, a statement said.

The sale is designed to widen shareholdings and raise the number of investors, a Post spokesman said.

The German government transferred about half its stake in Deutsche Post to the development bank last month in a bid to raise revenue and reduce its budget deficit.

KfW is the largest stakeholder in the German postal service with 48.3 percent of shares, while the government holds a fifth.

Deutsche Post stock fell by 4.81 percent to EUR 16.03 at mid-morning in Frankfurt, but analysts said the sale would be positive for the issue in the long term.

KfW’s sale of the shares had been expected. Under a holding arrangement it had last month acquired shares from both Deutsche Telekom and Deutsche Post from the government at a discount price of EUR 5.5 billion.

The arrangement covered altogether 4.7 percent (about 199 million shares) of the share capital of Telekom and 30 percent (about 334 million shares) of the postal service.

The bank holds the shares ahead of an eventual sale in the market, paying any gain in final sale price to the government. In return it received a loan of EUR 500 million from the government so that the share purchase did not affect the bank’s equity ratio.

The German state first sold Deutsche Post shares to the public in November 2000. Since 1996, the government has regularly sold shares of the former post and phone monopolies to the KfW.

DPA
Subject: German news