The German corporation Thyssen-Krupp had hoped to use the sale of its protifable elevator division to raise funds needed to undertake a restructuring of the company. Instead, the company has found it will likely spend the money on covering the costs of damage inflicted on it by the coronavirus pandemic. And the road back to financial health will be made far more difficult by the resulting recession. When the company’s new CEO Martina Merz took the job on April 1, the company was already in far worse shape than she’d originally anticipated when accepting the role. Thyseen-Krupp sold its elevator division for €17.2bn, completing a deal that should have given it substantial power to rethink business. Now, it appears, the company is running out of money again. It has €15bn in debts and pension obligations alone, and an estimated free cash flow in good years of minus two billion euro. The company’s balance sheet is due to be published on May 12, but it canceled its forecast for 2020. The German government has agreed to lend Thyssen-Krupp roughly €1bn. With its only profit generator now sold off and the economic environment going critical, May could be a fateful month for this icon of German industry.
