Mercedes headquarters in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim: The ownership structure is changing somewhat as a result of the partial withdrawal of the Kuwaiti sovereign wealth fund.
(Photo: dpa)
Stuttgart After almost five decades, the Kuwaiti sovereign wealth fund is partially withdrawing from the Stuttgart carmaker Mercedes-Benz. The Kuwait Investment Authority dumped 20 million Mercedes-Benz shares overnight, reducing its stake from 6.8 percent to just under 5 percent, Mercedes-Benz confirmed on Wednesday.
Kuwait, previously the third-largest shareholder of the luxury-class manufacturer, is raising almost 1.4 billion euros, as Morgan Stanley, the investment bank commissioned with the placement, explained.
Kuwait remains a major shareholder at Mercedes
The carmaker said it had been informed in advance by the Kuwaitis about the sales plans. The state fund, which has been involved with Mercedes since the 1970s, wants to spread its shares more widely, but remains an important shareholder.
The 20 million shares were sold at EUR 69.27, a discount of 3.6 percent on Tuesday’s Xetra closing price of EUR 71.89. On Wednesday, Mercedes-Benz settled at 70.51 euros. The sovereign wealth fund takes advantage of the jump in the price of Mercedes shares in the partial sale. In the past three years, they have almost quadrupled in value, and since mid-2022 alone they have increased by 40 percent.
The two largest shareholders of Mercedes-Benz are its Chinese partners, the car manufacturer BAIC (9.98 percent) and the entrepreneur Li Shufu (Geely, 9.69 percent). In the course of the recent share buyback by Mercedes-Benz, you had agreed with the carmaker to leave your stake unchanged.
He recently left the truck manufacturer Daimler Truck, in which Li held 6.3 percent.
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