Bundeskartellamt clears increase of Kühne’s stake in Lufthansa

The Bundeskartellamt has cleared the increase of Kühne Holding AG’s stake in Deutsche Lufthansa AG, which now amounts to 15.01 per cent.

The competitive assessment focused on the vertical effects of the concentration. Kühne+Nagel International AG, which belongs to the Kühne group of companies, is one of the largest globally operating logistics providers. The company is a major customer for Lufthansa’s air freight services.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: “The parties have significant market positions in the air freight sector and the downstream logistics markets. However, following our investigations we have concluded that the acquisition raises no serious competition concerns. Even if Kühne’s stake in Lufthansa were to result in less capacity being available to other customers for air freight services in the future, these customers would still have sufficient alternatives to choose from.”

Deutsche Lufthansa AG holds a significant share of the limited number of departure and arrival slots at German airports. However, the Bundeskartellamt’s investigations have shown that capacity shortages play a less important role in the air freight sector compared to passenger transport. In particular, customers wishing to transport goods between Europe and other continents by air will generally be able to switch to other airlines or other airports, including those in other European countries.

In addition, with passenger air traffic and container shipping recovering, continuous improvement in air freight capacity can meanwhile be observed. Air freight capacity has been very tight over the last two years as a consequence of the temporary air traffic collapse caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the disruptions in the container shipping industry. On many trading routes this had led to price increases for customers.

The acquisition of shares was subject to merger control by the Bundeskartellamt as Kühne will now be able to exercise a material competitive influence on Lufthansa (Section 37(1) no. 4 of the German Competition Act – GWB) even though the company only holds a 15.01 per cent stake. Due to continuously low attendance rates at Lufthansa shareholder meetings over the last years, Kühne has assumed the role of a minority shareholder with de-facto blocking rights.