Bruce Barnard, Special Correspondent | Dec 13, 2011 9:40AM EST
TUI is exercising its right to tender a further 33.3 percent stake in Hapag-Lloyd to the Albert Ballin consortium, which owns a majority of the ocean carrier, as the German tourism group seeks to exit the container shipping industry.
Failure to seal a deal with the consortium would pave the way for another investor in Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd, the world’s fifth-largest container ship operator by capacity.
Reports in Germany citing unnamed sources have tabbed Singapore’s Neptune Orient Lines as a possible investor. NOL last week denied it has been in talks regarding Hapag-Lloyd.
TUI’s supervisory board today approved the decision to auction the majority of its 38.4 percent stake to the consortium, which already owns the remaining 61.6 percent of Hapag-Lloyd.
It is not clear the consortium can afford to buy the stake, to be priced by an independent auditor, which will free TUI to open negotiations with a third party.
The consortium would have to sell the same number of shares to the investor at the same price, giving the buyer majority control of Hapag-Lloyd.
“Our exit from container shipping was set down more than three years ago with all partners in the Hamburg-based consortium, “TUI’s Chief Executive Officer Michael Franzel said. “In the current year we have already reduced our invested capital by one billion euros {$1.3 billion]. Exercising our tender right is now the next consistent step.”
Two Albert Ballin members, the German logistics billionaire Klaus-Michael Kuehne and the city of Hamburg, want to buy at least 20 percent of TUI’s stake in Hapag-Lloyd, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reported Tuesday.
TUI, which sold an 11.33 percent stake in Hapag-Lloyd to the Albert Ballin consortium earlier in the year, has to exercise its right to sell a further tranche by January 2, 2012 at the latest.
