TUI Group has announced it is selling its luxury expedition brand Hapag-Lloyd to its 50:50 joint venture with Royal Caribbean Cruises for US$1.3 billion, to help facilitate “stronger, faster and capital-light growth”. Hapag-Lloyd will now be incorporated into the TUI Cruises combined enterprise, a partnership established by TUI and Royal...
TUI Group has announced it is selling its luxury expedition brand Hapag-Lloyd to its 50:50 joint venture with Royal Caribbean Cruises for US$1.3 billion, to help facilitate “stronger, faster and capital-light growth”.
Hapag-Lloyd will now be incorporated into the TUI Cruises combined enterprise, a partnership established by TUI and Royal Caribbean in 2008, with the transaction expected to be finalised later in the year.
TUI Group CEO Fritz Joussen said the agreement, which was signed in Hamburg last Fri, would allow the company to expedite its expansion plans at “a low level of capital expenditure”.
However, Joussen also stressed that the ownership restructure would not compromise Hapag-Lloyd’s current brand identity.
“The merger of TUI Cruises and Hapag-Lloyd Cruises under the umbrella of the joint venture will create a leading European cruise company with a current combined fleet of twelve ships,” he said.
“TUI Cruises and Hapag-Lloyd Cruises will continue to operate their successful product concepts in the future…and Hapag-Lloyd Cruises will continue to have an exclusive presence in the luxury and expedition ship segment.
“The ships’ identities, service, quality and customer experience will remain as individual and unique as they are today, this will create significant advantages for the group, for our expansion and for our investments,” he added.
TUI Group said it would use the funds generated from the deal to strengthen its balance sheet and to drive its transformation into a digital organisation.
