Merck KGaA CEO interested in becoming Lufthansa chairman: Report
Merck KGaA Chief Executive Karl-Ludwig Kley would take the chairman’s role at airline Lufthansa if it was offered to him, a German magazine quoted him as saying.
Kley is to step down as chief executive of pharmaceutical company Merck in April. He is a former finance chief at Lufthansa and a current member of the supervisory board of an airline which has been hit by a series of strikes.
“Were I to be asked, it would be my honour to say yes,” Manager Magazin cites Kley as saying in an excerpt of an article to be published on Friday, made available to Reuters on Thursday.
Manager Magazin cited Lufthansa sources as saying the airline’s chairman Wolfgang Mayrhuber will remain in office at least until 2017, though adding that there had previously been signals he might step down earlier for personal reasons.
Merck declined to comment. Lufthansa was not immediately available to comment.
Germany’s largest airline is facing tough competition from Gulf operators including Emirates, Etihad and Qatar and low-cost carriers such as Ryanair and EasyJet. That has resulted in drawn-out labour disputes with pilots and cabin crew over cost cutting measures.
The magazine cites Kley as saying he was fully aware that “to strengthen this icon of the German economy constitutes a tremendous task”.
