Germany’s beleaguered Lufthansa to quit Frankfurt’s Dax 30

FRANKFURT AM MAIN, Germany – German airline giant Lufthansa will leave Frankfurt’s Dax 30 index, the stock market said on Thursday, June 4, after share price collapsed during the coronavirus pandemic.

The real estate group Deutsche Wohnen will replace Lufthansa on the Dax from June 22, Deutsche Borse said in a statement.

The share price for Lufthansa, a Dax member since the bourse was set up in 1988, had started to fall well before the pandemic.

But it plunged with the crisis, which saw almost all of the group’s passenger operations come to a halt.

Lufthansa said it would undergo “far-reaching” restructuring as it posted a 1st quarter net loss of 2.1 billion euros ($2.3 billion) on Wednesday, June 3.

The airline’s supervisory board on Monday, June 1, approved a 9-billion-euro bailout deal from the Germany government.

The group is to ask its shareholders to back the accord at an online meeting on June 25.

The bailout will see the German government take a 20% stake in the group, with an option to claim a further 5% plus one share to block hostile takeovers.

That would make the federal government Lufthansa’s biggest shareholder. – Rappler.com