Possible Group restructuring at Lufthansa

Author: Marcus Schilling
Date: 30.07.2019

Restructuring into a holding

At Lufthansa, the management and supervisory board are currently debating a new, lean group structure. As part of this, the airline could be transformed into a holding company in the future. This is reported in the newspaper “Handelsblatt”.

According to the newspaper, the talks are still in the initial phase. The company plans to reduce its complexity. In this context, the individual airlines of the group, for example the low-cost airline Eurowings, could get more freedom. This should enable the business to develop better.

Lufthansa recently shocked investors with a profit warning. Now CEO Spohr could meet the increasing pressure with a restructuring. A lean holding company is apparently up for discussion.

Only recently Lufthansa issued a profit warning, which unsettled investors. The reason for the poor development is the fierce price war in European air traffic as well as falling ticket prices, which are continuously pushing profits down.

Now company boss Carsten Spohr seems to be forced to act – investors have been demanding a streamlining to a holding company for quite some time. The airline announced to the “Handelsblatt” that it would review the group structure at regular intervals in order to ensure its future viability.

For this purpose, the administration, for example, will be streamlined. A working group has already been established which will deal with the previous matrix structure, whose responsibilities are spread over four locations. However, the group must disclose and tax the hidden reserves and remove the Lufthansa core brand from the administration.