FRANKFURT, GERMANY – Lufthansa said Wednesday it had agreed to sell the remainder of its LSG Group catering business to a private equity firm, allowing the German carrier to “focus more on its airline business”.
The LSG Group, which employs around 19,000 people worldwide, will be sold to private equity group Aurelius, Lufthansa said in a statement, without revealing financial details.
The airline giant had already sold LSG’s European operations activities to Swiss-based Gategroup in 2019.
“The divestment of the catering segment is part of the Lufthansa group’s strategy to focus more on its airline business in the future,” the carrier said.
The Lufthansa group – one of Europe’s biggest airlines – was brought to the brink of bankruptcy when the COVID-19 pandemic saw global air travel grind to a halt, and had to be bailed out by the German government in 2020.
The group recovered strongly once coronavirus curbs eased and demand for air travel bounced back.
It returned to the black in 2022, posting a net profit of 791 million euros ($866 million).
The LSG transaction is scheduled to close in the third quarter of 2023.
