By Alexander H\u00fcbner and Sabine Siebold<\/p>\n
MUNICH\/BERLIN, April 11 (Reuters) – Germany must ensure it matches France’s holding in a planned 20 billion euro ($23 \u200cbillion) listing nL8N40722D of Leopard tank maker KNDS, a high-level \u200cGerman labour leader said, adding that this will require Berlin taking more than a blocking minority \u200bof 25%.<\/p>\n
Juergen Kerner, deputy head of Germany’s most powerful union IG Metall, told Reuters that ownership parity was key “to safeguard German technology and jobs” and that Berlin “must not miss the right moment to do so”.<\/p>\n
Kerner, one of Germany’s most \u200csenior worker representatives, holds \u2060supervisory board seats at numerous German industrial firms including Siemens Energy, Thyssenkrupp, Siemens and Traton.<\/p>\n
KNDS is currently owned through a \u206050-50 split between the French government and the family owners of Germany’s former Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, or KMW, who plan to sell their entire stake in an IPO \u200bwhich \u200bsources say is planned for June or \u200bJuly.<\/p>\n
Sources told Reuters in February \u200cthat Berlin is preparing nL6N3ZD0M8 the purchase of at least 25.1% as a result, a level Kerner said will not be enough to ensure parity with France’s holding.<\/p>\n
“Even if France was prepared to reduce its stake to, for example, less than 40%, a blocking minority of 25% would not be \u200csufficient. Otherwise, Germany runs the risk of \u200blosing control of a key company in the \u200bcourse of the IPO,” Kerner \u200bsaid.<\/p>\n
The planned IPO could become one of the biggest in \u200cEurope this year and would establish \u200bKNDS as one \u200bof the region’s 10 biggest defence companies in a sector that has drawn investor interest as the continent seeks to increase military spending.<\/p>\n
Spokespeople \u200bfor KNDS and its \u200cGerman family owners declined to comment.<\/p>\n
The German government had no immediate \u200bcomment.<\/p>\n
($1 = 0.8531 euros)<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Alexander Huebner and Sabine Siebold; Writing by \u200bChristoph Steitz; Editing by Alexander Smith)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Alexander H\u00fcbner and Sabine Siebold MUNICH\/BERLIN, April 11 (Reuters) – Germany must ensure it matches France’s holding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5,3841,3845,3842,3843,3844],"class_list":{"0":"post-3767","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-germany","9":"tag-juergen-kerner","10":"tag-kerner","11":"tag-knds","12":"tag-leopard-tank","13":"tag-siemens-energy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}