Deutsche Bahn’s (DBN.UL) supervisory board on Wednesday narrowly approved the sale of its profitable logistics business Schenker to Denmark’s DSV, batting away union opposition and pushback from rival bidder CVC.
The Danish company agreed to buy Schenker for 14.3 billion euros ($15.8 billion) in a deal that state-run Deutsche Bahn hopes will allow it to concentrate on improving Germany’s railway infrastructure and services while also reducing debt.
“We are very pleased that Deutsche Bahn has confirmed that their two conditions for approving the sale of Schenker to DSV have been obtained,” said Jens Lund, CEO of DSV, whose shares rose 5% after the board’s approval.
“This means that we can continue our efforts to be ready for closing this transformational transaction according to the agreed plans.”
The supervisory board vote was close. There were nine votes against the sale, mainly due to the concerns of worker representatives on the board, people familiar with the voting result said.
There were ten votes in favour of the deal and one abstention.
The railway union EVG had said its members would reject the deal, partly because of the risk to jobs.
“We consider the decision to sell Schenker to be a serious strategic mistake,” said the head of the EVG union, Martin Burkert.
DSV won the bidding against the financial investor CVC.
DSV and Schenker are number three and four in the fragmented global logistics market. Together they would be number one globally. Both employ over 70,000 people worldwide.
The sale is expected to be completed in the course of 2025 after all regulatory approvals have been received, Deutsche Bahn said in a separate statement, calling it an important milestone in order to focus on overhauling domestic rail infrastructure.
Source: Reuters.com