The interesting word that most people seem to have overlooked is the word 'verpflichted' which basically means 'must', 'required' or 'honour bound'.
It would seem, from reading the German press on this matter, that LH didn't have a great deal of choice and the purchase was pushed/driven by SMB. Remember, LH were forced to take this option if SMB didn't like any others. It was a done deal when the share options were signed for the original 30%. Lufthansa appear to have fingers in an awful lot of pies at the moment. With SAS, Austrian Arrows, BMI etc... plus a profit warning issued this week, the future looks to be a great deal of corporate indigestion trying to sort the whole mess out.
Whilst the fundamental business of LH is sound taking on this much dysfunctional baggage (not meaning BMI as such but also Austrian and SAS) could be a major headache for the company over the coming recession.
Should be intriguing to watch how it all gets digested.
edited for punctuation, punctuation, punctuation as my old school 'marm used to say
