Knorr-Bremse is considering takeover of automotive supplier Hella

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Hella headquarters in Lippstadt: The company share reached a high

Photo: David Inderlied / dpa

The family company behind Knorr-Bremse, KB Holding, announced the large-scale sale of Lufthansa shares just a few weeks ago, with the aim of raising hundreds of millions of euros.

The restructuring may also have something to do with this: The Munich-based brake system manufacturer, which is predominantly owned by the holding company, has now expressed its interest in principle in buying the automotive supplier Hella.

Knorr-Bremse AG confirmed that "it is fundamentally interested in acquiring the package of 60 percent of the shares held by the founding family," according to a press release.

The company Hella, which specializes in the manufacture of lighting technology and electronic products for cars, is currently valued at around 6.3 billion euros.

Knorr-Bremse could therefore pay around 3.9 billion euros for the shares.

The talks are currently "at a very early stage" and at the moment it is still unclear whether a transaction will come about, it said.

However, Knorr-Bremse is apparently not the only interested party: the French automotive suppliers Plastic Omnium and Faurecia are also said to have submitted bids for Hella, as reported by the Reuters news agency, citing financial circles.

Does the sensor business matter for Knorr-Bremse?

Hella has not yet commented on the plans of its owners, about which

manager magazin

reported two months ago - and which have since weighed on the share price of the family company from Lippstadt in Westphalia.

A spokesman still declined to comment.

Knorr-Bremse investors found it difficult to understand the brakes company's advance.

The Munich-based group is almost exclusively active as a supplier for truck and train manufacturers, while Hella mainly equips passenger cars.

Hella’s business with sensors, which are the prerequisite for autonomous driving, which the Munich-based company also see as a future opportunity for trucks, could be of interest to Knorr-Bremse.

Knorr is currently purchasing the technology for this from Continental.

On the Frankfurt stock exchange, the Hella share has meanwhile reached a high of 61.90 euros and thus an increase of nine percent, the highest level of the Hella share to date.

The price then fell again in the afternoon to a plus of almost six percent.

The Knorr-Bremse share price fell on Tuesday by a good ten percent to around 100 euros.

Knorr-Bremse went public in autumn 2018 and was valued at 3.8 billion euros at the time.

The majority shareholder and long-standing CEO was the billionaire Heinz Hermann Thiele, who died in February.

He became known in the corona crisis after he joined Lufthansa as a major shareholder in March 2020, at times he held around 15 percent of the airline.

apr / AFP / Reuters