Key Lufthansa shareholder Heinz Hermann Thiele dies aged 79

Heinz Hermann Thiele, the German billionaire industrialist who as of February 2021 owned 12.42% of Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt Int’l), has died at the age of 79. Knorr-Bremse AG, the brake-system manufacturer through which he made much of his fortune and where he was deputy chairman and majority shareholder, released a statement that Thiele had passed away on February 23 surrounded by his family in Munich but did not provide a cause of death. Forbes placed Heinz Hermann Thiele and family at number 91 in its 2020 list of billionaires by net worth, which it put at USD12.9 billion as of July 2020. But according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the tycoon, who also owned half of railroad-equipment maker Vossloh AG, had a USD20.2 billion fortune which made him the fourth-richest person in Germany and 97th in the world. A native of Mainz and a lawyer by education, Thiele joined the legal department at Knorr-Bremse in the late 1960s before acquiring a controlling stake in the company in the mid-1980s. As previously reported, the industrialist increased his stake in Lufthansa on March 16, 2020 – after the airline group’s share price, as with those of most of its industry peers, had started to plummet with the eruption of the Covid-19 pandemic – from 5.29% to 10.01%, making him the group’s largest shareholder. In that transaction, he bought 22.6 million shares for EUR195.5 million euros (USD212 million at the time). Shortly afterwards, he took centre stage as an activist investor in the unfolding drama gripping the beleaguered carrier, building his stake to more than 15% and criticising the government’s proposed rescue plan. He commented that he was convinced that “the state is not the best entrepreneur” and in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung he suggested that the bailout ignored the interests of Lufthansa shareholders and instead favoured German taxpayers. As part of the bailout, the German government would initially acquire a 20% stake in the carrier after the purchase of newly issued shares. He was also concerned that the proposed share sale to the government, via the Economic Stabilization Fund (Wirtschaftsstabilisierungsfonds – WSF), would dilute his own recently strengthened shareholding. However, at a climactic extraordinary general meeting on June 25, attending shareholders representing 98% of the shares voted in favour of the plan. His last intervention came in November 2020, when he tried to place additional pressure on Lufthansa’s leadership to cut costs more quickly and decisively in view of poor demand and billions in losses. He also called on the government to broker pay-cut talks with unions, but the government chose not to join the discussions. It is not yet clear what the death of Thiele, who would have turned 80 on April 2, will mean for Lufthansa. His family has not commented on what it will do with his 12.4% stake. Lufthansa was not immediately available for comment to ch-aviation.