German Bank Sells USD2.41B Shares of Post

A German state-owned bank said Monday it sold over 2 billion euros (USD2.41 billion) in Deutsche Post AG stock, cutting the government stake in Europe’s biggest mail service to under 50 percent.

KfW Bank AG sold 110 million shares for 18.90 euros (USD22.89) each to institutional investors, raising a total of 2.079 billion euros (USD2.518 billion), it said in a statement late Monday.

Shares in Deutsche Post had closed down 1.4 percent at 19.12 euros (USD23.16) in Frankfurt.

KfW said the sale cut its holding in Deutsche Post from 48.8 percent to 38.9 percent, and that the proportion of the shares freely traded will rise from 44 percent to 55.3 percent, ending the government’s majority holding. The government still holds a stake of about 7 percent.

Sales of investments in former state-owned monopolies such as Deutsche Telekom and the postal service have helped fund the government’s stretched budget, which has been outside EU-mandated limits since 2002.

Berlin hopes to raise 15.45 billion euros (USD18.71 billion) in privatization revenues this year, much of it through the planned transfer of stakes to KfW, shorthand for Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau.

The government books the gains at the time of the transfer and gets additional money if KfW later sells the shares at a profit. It was unclear if it would make get more following Monday’s announcement.

Deutsche Post is Europe’s biggest postal service provider and offers financial services through its majority-owned Deutsche Postbank unit. It also operates express delivery service DHL.