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Case Study Analysis: Lufthansa: to Hedge or Not to Hedge

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Case Study Analysis: Lufthansa: To Hedge or Not to Hedge…
By Mathew Stubbs and Michael Homewood
In January 1985, Lufthansa, a German airline company procured twenty new 737 airplanes from Boeing. Under the chairmanship of Heinz Ruhnau, a price of US$500 million was negotiated. The agreed price was payable in United States Dollars (USD) upon delivery of the aircraft in one years time, on January 1986. Since Lufthansa’s operating revenues were primarily in Deutsche Marks (DM), Ruhnau needed to determine an appropriate solution to minimize the resulting foreign exchange risk.

In the year preceding the expansion purchase, Lufthansa was experiencing periods of extensive growth. In 1984, the company experienced an overall increase in passenger and freight volume of seven and seventeen percent respectively. This increase in volume resulted in a 7.14% increase in revenue to US$4.5 billion, and a 134.78% increase in net profits to US$54 million.

At the time, significant speculation had been surrounding the value of US dollar and its anticipated direction. By January 1985, the US dollar was at record levels against other currencies (See Exhibit 1), and the state of the interest rate differential between the US and Germany suggested it would steadily increase (See Exhibit 2). The sustained strength of the US dollar, combined with the booming US economy influenced people to believe the dollar would continue to appreciate. During this period of time, central bankers from the G-7 countries were concerned with the inflated overvaluation of the USD and determined a decrease would be beneficial for the world economy. Additionally, congress began voicing their concerns with the high value of the US dollar as it severely restricted the competitiveness of US exports in foreign markets. Additionally, the implied forward rate between the exchange rates is 3.0579DM/$ which

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