Hapag-Lloyd receives loan to purchase containerships

Hapag-Lloyd receives loan to purchase containerships A syndicate of six banks has agreed to lend $750 million to Hapag-Lloyd AG to be used by the company to buy back a fleet of 29 containerships from its parent, German tourism company TUI AG.
   The financing agreement comes on the heels of an announcement earlier this week that TUI would sell Hapag-Lloyd to a Hamburg-based group of investors for 4.45 billion euro ($5.9 billion.)
   The vessels to be purchased back from TUI have container loading capacities 2,000 to 7,500 TEUs each, a combined capacity of 118,000 TEUs, and mostly sail under a German flag.
   Hapag-Lloyd said it has a fleet of 133 containerships. Information service AXS Alphaliner gave a count of 135 ships, saying 62 were owned and 73 chartered.
   The banks Bayerische Hypo- und Vereinsbank (Markets and Investment Banking division) and HSH Nordbank AG are coordinating the syndicate in which DekaBank Girozentrale, Dresdner Bank AG, KfW IPEX Bank and The Royal Bank of Scotland are also participating. The financing has a five-year term.
   HSH Nordbank is one of the investors buying Hapag-Lloyd. The other investors in the Hamburg group are the investment bank M.M. Warburg; Klaus-Michael Kuehne, who is also head of Swiss logistics company Kuehne + Nagel; the city of Hamburg; and the insurance companies Signal Iduna and Hanse Merkur.