On Tuesday evening, the state-owned bank KfW placed a package of 50 million Deutsche Post DHL shares with institutional investors for 2.17 billion euros. The package is parked at KfW, but the federal government is entitled to the profit. Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) had announced that he wanted to raise up to four billion euros this year with the sale of federal shareholdings in order to finance the renovation of Deutsche Bahn's rail network. "With this transaction, the federal government is continuing its responsible policy of privatizing companies in which there is no significant federal interest," explained the ministry in the evening.

"The federal government will use the proceeds from the transaction to strengthen Deutsche Bahn's equity capital and to expand the rail infrastructure in Germany in a forward-looking manner." KfW explained that it had used "the good stock market environment at the beginning of this year" for the sale in consultation with the Ministry of Finance. As a result, the state's stake in Swiss Post has fallen from 20.5 percent to 16.5 percent. However, this means that the state remains the largest shareholder in Swiss Post.

A spokesperson for Swiss Post was relaxed: "We have been saying for a long time that we are neutral about a further reduction in the federal shareholding." In December, the letter and parcel company had stated that it was counting on KfW to take further privatization steps in a market-friendly manner. It has succeeded in doing so. The shares were placed at EUR 43.45, the discount of 2.2 percent on the Xetra closing price is unusually low for such a large placement. The sale was organized by JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America. In late trading, Post shares had fallen 1.3 percent to 43.51 euros.

The federal government also holds a stake in Deutsche Telekom, among others. There, 13.8 percent are held directly by the state and a further 16.6 percent by KfW.

(Report by Alexander Hübner and Matthias Inverardi, edited by Birgit Mittwollen. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).