The German government has reached an agreement to acquire a 50% stake in the Franco-German defence group KNDS, which manufactures Leopard 2 tanks and PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzers. Tagesschau reports, citing confidential government documents.<\/p>\n
The value of the deal has not been disclosed.<\/p>\n
KNDS was established in 2015 through the merger of German armoured vehicle manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and French state-owned company Nexter. Following the deal, Germany and France will each own 50% of the group.<\/p>\n
KNDS had initially planned to launch an initial public offering (IPO) in 2026, listing 20% of its shares on the stock exchange. Under that arrangement, Germany and France would each have held 40% stakes. However, the IPO was abandoned due to unfavourable market conditions.<\/p>\n
If completed, the deal will mark the largest instance of direct German state participation in the capital of a defence company. Berlin will be able to exert direct influence over investment decisions, the modernisation of production facilities and efforts to increase armoured vehicle output.<\/p>\n
KNDS\u2019s German division manufactures Leopard 2 tanks and PzH 2000 self-propelled howitzers, which have also been supplied to Ukraine. Together with Rheinmetall, the group also produces Boxer wheeled armoured personnel carriers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":152411,"menu_order":0,"template":"","newscat":[9],"newstag":[],"issues":[],"class_list":["post-152410","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","newscat-novosti"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/152410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"newscat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newscat?post=152410"},{"taxonomy":"newstag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newstag?post=152410"},{"taxonomy":"issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ldaily.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issues?post=152410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}