DUESSELDORF (Reuters) – Thyssenkrupp
Andreas Pinkwart, economy minister of North Rhine-Westphalia — Germany’s most populous state where Thyssenkrupp is based — said talks with the conglomerate over state aid continued and that various options were being discussed.
“At the moment we’re seeing that the company and also the labour representatives are leaning towards carving out steel and putting it under the WSF (economic stabilisation fund),” Pinkwart said in a state parliament session.
He said the scenario was currently being examined by Germany’s Finance Minister Olaf Scholz and Economy Minister Peter Altmaier.
Thyssenkrupp declined to comment.
The conglomerate is currently looking for ways to fix its loss-making steel unit and has not ruled out seeking state aid or selling a majority of the business to a peer. Britain’s Liberty Steel has made a non-binding offer for the business.
Powerful labour union IG Metall is meanwhile piling pressure on the government to bail out Germany’s largest steelmaker by taking a stake in the division, whose operating loss likely stood at 1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) in 2019/20.
Juergen Kerner, chief treasurer of IG Metall and Thyssenkrupp’s deputy supervisory board chairman, said the government needed to take a stake of significantly more than 25% in the steel unit.
(Reporting by Tom Kaeckenhoff; Writing by Christoph Steitz; Editing by Michelle Adair)
