Deutsche Bahn hires three investment giants to sell DB Schenker
Deutsche Bahn (DB) has hired three investment banks to prepare for the sale of its logistics subsidiary DB Schenker. The three banks are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and German bank Deutsche Bank, with the latter having an advisory role in this.
Interested parties in the purchase include Danish DSV and a number of American investment funds, as Reuters mentioned. Analysts have put a price tag of 20 billion euros on DB Schenker. However, the question is whether they can raise enough capital from investors for the multibillion-dollar purchase, given the poorer stock market climate.
German transport billionaire Klaus Michael Kuehne also showed interest in DB Schenker, but is only interested in a minority share. Kuehne holds the majority of shares in Schenker competitor K+N and knows that a takeover of the DB subsidiary could encounter a veto from the German and European competition authorities. The same risk makes a purchase by Deutsche Post DHL unlikely. Both K+N and DHL would acquire too large a market position in the German market with Schenker.
A deal is expected in the third quarter of 2023
The supervisory board of DB put Schenker on display at the end of last year after much political pressure from the Federal Government in Berlin. Germany’s transport minister Volker Wissing said in January that the sale plan came “just at the right time” because takeover prices are still at a historic high. Whether that is still the case is the question, given the declining profit figures in logistics for the last quarter of 2022. A sale of Schenker is not expected until the third quarter of this year at the earliest.
This article was originally published in our sister publication Nieuwsblad Transport.
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Shares of DB SCHENKER, an exiting, big, existing entreprise, with organisation, management, global tentacles, etc., etc., simply is requested at DAX (Germany, etc.!)
Please, just put DB SCHENKER on beurs!