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Kuwait sovereign wealth fund sells Mercedes shares
03/28/2023 9:02 p.m
The Kuwaiti sovereign wealth fund has invested in Mercedes-Benz since the 1970s. After almost five decades, the third-largest shareholder is now on the verge of a partial withdrawal and is reducing its stake to less than five percent.
After almost five decades, the Kuwaiti sovereign wealth fund is partially withdrawing from the Stuttgart carmaker Mercedes-Benz. The Kuwait Investment Authority put 20 million Mercedes-Benz shares on the market overnight and could thus generate almost 1.4 billion euros, as Morgan Stanley, the investment bank commissioned with the placement, announced in the evening.
With 6.84 percent, Kuwait has so far been the third-largest shareholder in Mercedes-Benz and is now shrinking its stake to just under five percent. 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 bank announced that the 20 million shares would probably be sold at EUR 69.27. That is a discount of 3.6 percent to the Xetra closing price of EUR 71.89. The placement was oversubscribed many times over at this price. In late trading, Mercedes-Benz fell 2.7 percent to 69.80 euros.
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.