Thyssenkrupp leaves open possibility of keeping steel majority

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Thyssenkrupp executives left open the possibility on Thursday that the German industrial group could keep the majority in any new entity formed by a merger of its European steel operations with those of a competitor.

"The most important thing for us is that by a consolidation and by the underlying plan we can address the issues of overcapacity," Chief Finance Officer Guido Kerkhoff told analysts on a conference call.

"We have never stated consolidation, non-consolidation or discussed percentages and we don't do that today either."

He added that an initial public offering of the business without a merger would offer no solution to the underlying overcapacity issue.

 

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan)