European airline giant Lufthansa on Wednesday announced the sale of business travel manager AirPlus for 450 million euros to Swedish bank SEB Kort Bank, a new step in its strategy to refocus on its core business.
AirPlus, based in Neu-Isenburg near Frankfurt, organizes the payments for flight transport, vehicle rentals, hotel and restaurant expenses for company employees during their business trips from a central location.
Last year, the company had 53,000 corporate customers worldwide.
Lufthansa has carried out several major operations in the last three months, showing that it intends to refocus on passenger transport: the sale of the LSG fueling group in April to the investment company Aurelius and most recently a stake in the Italian company ITA Airways. after an agreement with the Italian state.
The sale of AirPlus “is the next big step in Lufthansa Group’s strategy to focus on its core business,” Remco Steenbergen, Lufthansa CFO, said in a statement.
Like the parent company, Airplus suffered from the sharp decline in air traffic, especially business travel, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the group, the gradual recovery of traffic in 2022 has allowed the company to reduce its operating loss to 74 million euros, down from 150 million euros in 2021.
Due to AirPlus’ capital-intensive business model, Lufthansa logically expects this sale to improve the operating margin (adjusted EBIT) and the Group’s return on capital.
AirPlus, on the other hand, is “excellently positioned on the market” and, thanks to its connection to a larger financial group, “can better exploit its potential than in the Lufthansa group”, according to Steenbergen.
The sale is expected to close in the first half of 2024, subject to approvals from various regulatory authorities.
On the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the Lufthansa share gained 0.66% on Wednesday in a declining market.