Shares in Tui Travel shed 1.9% on the London Stock Exchange yesterday due to unconfirmed reports that Germany major shareholder TUI AG had postponed a flotation of container shipping firm Hapag-Lloyd.
Tui Travel shares were down 4.5p to 228.2p amid the reports that a decision to float in Hapag-Lloyd had been delayed. Hapag Lloyd is part-owned by TUI AG, which had reportedly been planning to use the proceeds from any flotation to buy the shares it does not own in Tui Travel.
TUI AG declined to comment on reported comments from Hapag Lloyd majority shareholder, the Albert Ballin consortium, that the initial public offering had been put on ice due to the current turmoil in global stock markets due to the Japanese nuclear crisis, political unrest in the Middle East and rising oil prices.
“There will be no decision on an IPO today,” a spokesman for Albert Ballin consortium, which owns 50.2% of Hapag-Lloyd, was quoted as saying on Monday.
The supervisory board of TUIAG gave the go-ahead earlier in the month for a possible IPO with a date of April 15 seen as a possible date for the listing. News agency Reuters said it had been told by sources that an IPO of the world’s fifth-biggest container shipper could still happen by the end of June.