BERLIN, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- Heinz Hermann Thiele, majority shareholder of the German brake manufacturer Knorr-Bremse, announced that he intended to contribute the profits from the initial public offering (IPO) of his company to a charitable foundation, local media reported Monday.
"We use our money mainly to foster culture and education," the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung has quoted him as saying.
The Munich-based company launched on the stock exchange in the German city of Frankfurt on Friday with a volume of 3.9 billion euros (4.5 billion U.S. dollars), marking the second largest IPO in Germany this year. In March, Siemens Healthineers raised 4.2 billion euros with its IPO.
"We are proud to have reached this important milestone. We are even better positioned to address key issues of the future with the successful listing," said Klaus Deller, CEO of Knorr-Bremse, during the IPO on Friday.
His predecessor Thiele, former CEO and current honorary chairman of the Knorr-Bremse supervisory board, added that the IPO marked "the beginning of a new chapter in the 113-year history of Knorr-Bremse".
The market capitalization of the Bavarian brake manufacturer is currently at around 13 billion euros (15 billion U.S. dollars). Thiele holds the lion's share of 70 percent of the equities.
The business of Knorr-Bremse is focused on braking systems for trains and trucks. The company's revenues of 6.2 billion euros grew by 13.7 percent in 2017 and annual profit amounted to 1.1 billion euros. According to company figures, the group employs 29,000 people worldwide. (1 euro = 1.16 U.S. dollars)
