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As campaigning ramps up ahead of next month’s election, KKR’s majesty Johannes Huth has become the biggest donor to German election frontrunner Friedrich Merz’s centre-right party.
Huth, the former head of the US private equity giant in Europe and now a senior advisory partner, made a €50,000 donation to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) on January 2. Statements of the Bundestag.
Hutt, led by former finance minister Christian Lindner, has twice chosen to support the liberal FDP only in previous German elections, according to campaign transparency group Abgeordnetenwatch.
of CDU In the year He is leading opinion polls ahead of the February 23 election. Merz, the former chairman of US asset manager BlackRock in Germany, is expected to become the next chancellor of the euro zone’s biggest economy.
Huth declined to comment. The executive has remained a staunch supporter of the feds, without elaborating, a person familiar with the situation said.
Donations are not taxed in Germany and are published by the Bundestag when they exceed €35,000. Parties that get at least 0.5 percent of the vote in EU or parliamentary elections – or at least 1 percent in regional elections – also get public support.
Philip Freize, head of the firm’s European private equity operation at Huth KKR, tied with Linder and donated 50,000 euros to the FDP in early December, according to records.
It was made weeks after the Social Democratic chancellor. Olaf Scholz The tripartite government sacked the finance minister and set the stage for early elections. Fries donated to the Liberal Party in the last two elections, as well as to the CDU in 2017. Freys declined to comment.
The CDU and sister party CSU collected more than €4mn in donations of more than €35,000 from individuals and companies – about half of the total since Lindner was ousted on November 6.
Among the donors was senior Goldman Sachs banker Christoph Brand, who donated €37,500 this month following a €40,000 donation last April. While Brand used the Goldman Sachs office address in Frankfurt, a person familiar with the matter told the Financial Times that the donation was made in a personal capacity and not affiliated with the bank. Brand is a long-time party member and treasurer of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, which is affiliated with the CDU.
Goldman declined to comment. Brand declined to comment through a spokeswoman.
Rick van Ersen, one of three international managing partners at Magic Circle law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, donated €50,000 to the CDU in January. Van Eerssen said he had been a member of the CDU since his youth and regularly donated personally.
Research shows that Merz Party can win 30 percent of the vote, making it the largest political party in parliament. The business community has sided with Merz, vowing to cut corporate taxes and slash red tape to revive Germany’s beleaguered economy. Economy.
Huth’s new bet on the CDU also predicts the FDP will win 4 percent of the vote on February 23, well below the 5 percent threshold to hold seats in the Bundestag. In the year Linner’s party, which has 11.5 percent in 2021, has suffered since FDP officials announced plans to worsen the coalition’s collapse.
Huth and Freize are famous businessmen in Germany. Both sit on the supervisory board of the Berlin-based media empire that owns Politico and the powerful German tabloid Axel Spring. Bild And the wide sheet the world.
Their donation is the latest political intervention by senior officials at the company, which is close to completing a €13.5bn divestment from KKR after a five-year partnership.
Another member of the regulatory board, entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky, said last week that Elon Musk facilitated the opinion published in late December. World SundayThe world’s richest man has expressed his support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
