TUI places USD700m senior notes in capital market
TUI Group announced (01-Oct-2010) Hapag-Lloyd placed approximately USD700 million senior notes in the capital market. In response to the strong investor demand, Hapag-Lloyd increased the originally considered note issue volume of USD500 million. In addition, Hapag-Lloyd entered into a syndicated credit line of USD360 million. Beforehand, Hapag-Lloyd had terminated the state loan guarantee and thus the payment restrictions imposed by such guarantee ceased to exist. Therefore, Hapag-Lloyd resumes interest and redemption payments on the financing instruments granted by TUI. TUI meanwhile expects payments from Hapag-Lloyd of around EUR65 million euros on deferred interest as well as the EUR227 million redemption payment of the bridge loan at the beginning of Nov-2010. In addition, Hapag-Lloyd intends to use a portion of the proceeds of the notes to make a repayment of Hybrid III in the near future subject to compliance with certain contractual liquidity requirements and financial ratios. Furthermore, as per end of Sep-2010, TUI has issued EUR100 million of private placements with maturity in Aug-2014. The envisaged Hapag-Lloyd repayments and the new private placements enhance TUI's liquidity position. [more]