Bank crisis no bar to Hapag-Lloyd sale

The consortium buying top-ten shipping line Hapag-Lloyd have insisted the deal will go ahead, despite speculation that it had run into problems.

There were reports last week that the Albert Ballin consortium was seeking to renegotiate the deal with the German line’s parent company, Tui.

But the consortium insisted it intended to buy the line and said a continued dialogue between the conclusion of the purchase contract in October and the closing of deal was perfectly natural.

Some newspaper reports last week also suggested the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) had pulled out of a banking syndicate loaning Hapag-Lloyd €750m (US$968m) to purchase 29 container ships from Tui.

But Tui told IFW that because of the terms of the contract, RBS could not pull out of the vessel finance deal until the sale of Hapag-Lloyd was complete.

An industry source added that the two deals were separate and the sale of Hapag-Lloyd had nothing to do with its purchase of the ships from Tui.

Hapag-Lloyd and RBS both declined to comment.

The banking syndicate loaning Hapag-Lloyd the cash to purchase the ships also includes Bayerische Hypo- und Vereinsbank, HSH Nordbank, DekaBank Girozentrale, Dresdner Bank and KfW IPEX Bank.

Since the syndicate formed, RBS has found itself in increasing financial difficulty, resulting in the UK government taking a 58% share of the company as part of a rescue plan.

This change of control apparently gives RBS the right to withdraw from the Hapag-Tui deal but, according to Tui, not until after the sale of the shipping line to Albert Ballin.

In October, Tui announced it had approved a deal to sell the Hamburg-based shipping line to Albert Ballin for €4.45bn (US$6bn), including debt.

Some banking sources indicated that, at the time, the €4.45bn price tag was high, given uncertainties surrounding the container shipping trade.

Since then, container shipping lines have been forced to reduce container rates to record lows on the head-haul AsiaEurope trade as they battle overcapacity.

The Albert Ballin consortium includes Klaus Michael Kühne of forwarder Kuehne + Nagel, the city of Hamburg and a bank, Christian Olearius.