News - 22 May 2008
TUI will sell Hapag-Lloyd to highest bidder
TUI is pushing ahead with the sale of the German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd (HL). For the first time Rainer Feuerhake, member of the board for finance, has announced that HL’s assets amount to EUR 2 to 2.5 billion. ”However this is not the market value of HL,“ he added.
The computer system and the container terminals justify a higher price. He claims they represent around EUR 500 million to EUR 1 billion. It is uncertain whether HL will sell its shares in container terminals separately. They are not included in the sum of the assets mentioned by Feuerhake. The head office in Hamburg is worth some EUR 500 million, and the stake in CTA terminal in Hamburg (DE) is worth several hundred million euros. Feuerhake did not disclose the extent of HL's indebtedness. Insiders calculate the debt to be around EUR 1 billion. TUI wants to use the income from the planned sale to settle its own debts of EUR 3.5 billion and for the expansion of its tourism business. During the first quarter HL managed to increase sales by 2% to EUR 1.45 billion due to higher freight rates.
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