FRANKFURT, June 8: German airline Lufthansa AG’s corporate finance head Stephan Gemkow said the company still plans to place a long-awaited corporate bond, but is waiting for the right conditions, a German newspaper reported on Saturday.

The Boersen-Zeitung quoted Gemkow as saying that the spreads in the market must go down significantly before Lufthansa places the bond, adding that the airline was not in desperate need and would rather wait until conditions were favourable.

While the length of the bond is undecided, Gemkow said he prefers a seven year time period, while five years was also possible, the paper reported.

On June 3 Lufthansa said it would not proceed with the bond this month, which it had planned to place last September but put off after the September 11 hijack attacks on the United States.

The bond is intended to help support financing for planes and other investments, as well as Lufthansa’s 1.2 billion euros purchase of shares it didn’t already own in Onex Food Services or Sky Chefs. Listing plans for the catering unit in 2003 are currently on hold.

Lufthansa had net debt of about 3.5 billion euros at the end of the first three months of this year, 300 million less at the end of December, the paper said.—Reuters