Lufthansa offer accepted by over 85 per cent of the shareholders of Austrian Airlines AG

Three-month grace period to accept unchanged purchase offer

On expiry of the acceptance term for the public takeover offer to the free-float shareholders of Austrian Airlines AG on 11 May 2009, Deutsche Lufthansa AG has through ÖLH Österreichische Luftverkehrs-Holding-GmbH received acceptance declarations for an expected equivalent of over 85 per cent of the share capital of Austrian Airlines AG (not included in this figure are the shares held by Austrian Airlines AG). The actual acceptance quota can not be published until Thursday. That amount includes the 41.56 per-cent stake currently still held by the ÖIAG. Also included is the syndicate of Austrian core shareholders, consisting of LVBG Luftverkehrsbeteiligungs GmbH, Raiffeisen-Invest-Gesellschaft mbH and Wiener Städtische Versicherung AG Vienna Insurance Group.

Lufthansa made a public offer to purchase the stock held by all free-float shareholders of Austrian Airlines AG on 27 February 2009. Up to the expiry of the acceptance period on 11 May 2009, an estimated 85 per cent and more of the shares of Austrian Airlines had been offered for sale, so that the minimum acceptance threshold in the takeover bid was reached. The public offer is still subject to the suspensive conditions of anti-trust immunity and approval by the European Commission of 500 million euros in restructuring aid to be granted to Austrian Airlines by the Republic of Austria.

All shareholders, who have accepted the purchase offer by 11 May, will receive the offer price of 4.49 per share, not later than ten trading days after fulfillment of the suspensive conditions. For all shareholders of Austrian Airlines, who had not accepted the offer within the acceptance period ending 11 May 2009, the acceptance term will, as legally prescribed, be extended by three months from the day the acceptance quota of the Lufthansa public offer is officially communicated in the Wiener Zeitung – probably on 14 May 2009.