News

09 Jun 2008

TUI AG.'s owners are to meet on Tuesday to explore the options in the planned sale of the company's shipping unit Happag-Lloyd, Welt am Sonntag reported, citing no sources. Several national and international investors -- among them a group of investors led by Kuehne & Nagel chairman Klaus-Michael Kuehne -- have already expressed their interest in the unit, the paper added. Meanhwile, TUI's major shareholder Alexei Mordashov said the decisive element in the sale process of Hapag-Lloyd is the price and that the group led by Kuehne should not expect preferential treatment in the sale process.
'The one with the highest bid shall get the company (unit),' he told Der Spiegel.
Alexei Mordashov's S-Group Capital Management owns about 10 percent of TUI's shares.
On Saturday, Die Welt reported that TUI stakeholder John Fredriksen had threatened to block the sale of Hapag-Lloyd unless the unit fetches a price above analyst expectations, citing no sources.
Analysts see TUI fetching a price of about 5 billion euros, excluding debt, for the world's fifth-biggest shipping line, Die Welt said.
Fredriksen has increased his stake above 11.7 percent by an unknown amount, the newspaper said.