TUI completes Hapag-Lloyd sale

TUI completes Hapag-Lloyd sale    German tourism company TUI AG said Monday it has successfully completed the sale of a majority interest in its container shipping unit Hapag-Lloyd AG to a Hamburg-based consortium called 'Albert Ballin' Holding GmbH & Co. KG.
   TUI said Hapag-Lloyd was sold at an enterprise value of 4.45 billion euros ($6 billion). As part of the deal TUI has acquired a 43.33 percent stake in the Albert Ballin.
   TUI said it would receive an inflow of liquidity of 1.6 billion euros ($2.17 billion) with the transfer of ownership. In order to guarantee the financial stability of the Hapag-Lloyd, TUI said it would provide additional liquidity of up to 1.1 billion euros ($1.49 billion) for a limited period of time at customary market terms and conditions. It said it expected this so-called “liquidity frame” to be heavily used.

Frenzel

   TUI said as a major shareholder, its close involvement with Hapag-Lloyd would continue with TUI providing four of the six supervisory board members. Michael Frenzel, chief executive officer of TUI, will continue to chair the board.

Kuehne

   The owners of Albert Ballin Holding, which takes its name from a famous turn-of-the-century German shipping executive, include the city of Hamburg, private bank M.M. Warburg and investor Klaus-Michael Kuehne, majority owner of giant Swiss logistics company Kuehne & Nagel.
   The information service AXS Alphaliner ranks Hapag-Lloyd as the sixth-largest container carrier with 128 ships, 62 owned and 66 chartered ships, with total capacity of 488,030 TEUs. It also has 14 ships with 122,500 TEUs on order. ' Chris Dupin