Charity shop

21 May 2003

The German conglomerate has bought back shares and hinted at big acquisitions, even though its balance sheet is in a mess. There may be charitable explanations for all this. But ThyssenKrupp upsets creditors at its peril.

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ThyssenKrupp, the German conglomerate, on Monday said it had repurchased 16.9m of its own shares, or 3.29% of the total, from a company owned by the Islamic republic of Iran. The group paid about E24 per share. Its shares closed on Friday at E9.41.

The company bought the shares so that it would not fall foul of legislation allowing the US to exclude bidders from government contracts if they have links to states that allegedly sponsor terrorism. One definition of these ties is shareholdings exceeding 5%. As a result of the share repurchase, the Iraniancontrolled company's stake in ThyssenKrupp has fallen from 7.8% to 4.5%. The group acted after an approach early this year from the US administration, a person familiar with the situation said.

ThyssenKrupp, which has at least E12.5bn of net liabilities, added on Monday that it would sell businesses with revenues of E7bn. However, the group, with annual sales of E37bn, said it planned to have E40bnE46bn of revenues in the medium term.

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