OREANDA-NEWS. Deutsche Lufthansa AG is celebrating the anniversary of its initial listing on the stock exchange on Thursday April 14 2016: The shares of the long-established company have been traded on the stock market for 50 years since its introduction to the eight German stock exchanges on April 14 1966. The first listing was the preliminary larger partial privatization of the former state-owned-company. Lufthansa passed into private hands completely in 1997 when the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) sold the remaining share of more than 35 percent belonging to the German government.
 
The first trading day proved to be particularly successful for Lufthansa shareholders: The official market price was set at DM 2,920. As the share was issued at a nominal value of DM 1,000, this meant a spectacular gain of 192 percent on the first day of trading. The IPO took place during a period of strong business growth with high investment needs. In 1966, Lufthansa had some 3.7 million passengers, revenues of DM 1.06 billion (€0.54bn) and more than 17,000 staff. For comparison, in 2015, the Lufthansa Group transported 107.8 million passengers, generated sales of €32.1bn and had approximately 120,000 employees.
 
With the IPO, the federal government had offered shares worth DM 42 million for sale as part of a larger capital increase. This corresponded to about ten percent of the share capital of DM 400 million. The volume of the subscription orders from home and abroad exceeded the supply several times over. Due to the high demand, subscribers were each allocated a maximum of two shares. With the high issue price of DM 1,000, the federal government was aiming to attract an upscale share of the general public. At the time, Lufthansa spoke of a "people's share for the upper middle class". These days, the shares are all owned by diverse shareholders. On the last balance sheet date, 53.9 percent of the shares were held by institutional investors and private shareholders accounted for the remaining 46.1 percent.
 
Lufthansa stock has been a member of the index of the most important German stock market values ever since the DAX 30 started in 1988. The first dividend was paid out in 1969. Since then, the company has paid out €4.5bn to its shareholders, €2.9bn of that since the year 2000.
 
To mark the stock exchange anniversary, Simone Menne, CFO of Deutsche Lufthansa AG, will ring the bell to start the trading at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange at 09:00 tomorrow morning (Thursday). The ceremony will be broadcast via the following link as of 08:50 tomorrow morning: www.lufthansagroup.com/boersenjubilaeum.