Sale of Lufthansa Technik stake draws interest from financial investors - source

BERLIN (Reuters) -Lufthansa's plan to sell a stake in its aircraft maintenance business Lufthansa Technik has drawn more interest from financial investors than rival engineering firms, a source told Reuters on Thursday.

Lufthansa was more likely to opt for a stake sale of around 20-30% than the alternative of launching an initial public offering, the source added.

Separately, business daily Handelsblatt reported that Lufthansa is planning to start talks with private equity investors in December about the stake sale.

In a best case scenario, the board could then have a list of non-binding offers in January of next year, Handelsblatt said. The board is aiming for a valuation of between 6 and 8 billion euros ($5.99-$7.99 billion) including debt, it added, citing Lufthansa sources.

Lufthansa's chief financial officer Remco Steenbergen had said in August the sale process would start in early 2023. He left open whether Lufthansa had committed itself to selling shares and dropped the idea of an IPO. Lufthansa did not want to comment on this when asked by Reuters on Thursday.

(Reporting by Ilona WissenbachWriting by Paul Carrel; editing by Matthias Williams, Alexandra Hudson)