Eichel says German gov may sell Telekom and Post shares to plug budget hole

Germany’s finance minister Hans Eichel said the government may sell its remaining shares in Deutsche Post AG and Deutsche Telekom AG to help reduce its budget deficit, according to an interview in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

Asked how he could plug the country’s budget hole, Eichel said: ‘Without pinning myself down, we could sell our stakes in (Deutsche) Telekom and (Deutsche) Post.’

‘Of course we will take into consideration share-price developments, that is why we would again park the shares with the (state-owned) KfW bank,’ he told the newspaper.

Eichel added ‘we could also sell our stakes in airports which we have not yet sold’.

The government holds a stake in German airports operator Fraport AG, which runs Frankfurt airport.

Eichel declined to specify the current size of the budget deficit, however.

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