TUI, which wants to focus on its tourism business, has always maintained it is carrying out a three-track process for its 38.4 percent stake in Hapag-Lloyd -- a flotation, a sale to an outside investor or the tender option.
However, a flotation was blown off course by financial market turbulence earlier in the year and discussions with investors have so far not resulted in a deal.
"Our exit from container shipping was set down more than three years ago with all partners in the Hamburg-based consortium," TUI Chief Executive Michael Frenzel said after a meeting of the supervisory board.
The Albert Ballin consortium, named for the former Hapag boss, is a group of investors led by the city of Hamburg and Klaus-Michael Kuehne, majority owner of Swiss logistics group Kuehne & Nagel.
TUI had originally tried to sell a majority stake in Hapag-Lloyd in 2008 but the global financial crisis derailed the deal, meaning TUI kept a larger stake than it originally intended.
Even now TUI has chosen the tender route, it still has a long way to go before eventually offloading the stake, and could still also aim for a flotation.
If a price for the 33.3 percent shareholding cannot be agreed, an independent auditor will determine its market value, then the consortium will have until September 2012 to come up with funding.
If a sale agreement to Albert Ballin is not drawn up by end-September, TUI then has the right to sell a majority stake to a third-party investor.
As it doesn't have a majority stake, the consortium would have to sell enough of its shares to the investor to make up a majority at the same price as agreed by TUI. (Reuters)
