Hamburg Sued says merger talks with Hapag-Lloyd to stay on ice
Hamburg Sued, Germany's second-largest shipping group, said on Wednesday, May 15, 2013 it did not expect to resume merger talks with rival Hapag-Lloyd any time soon after talks were broken off on the form and details of a combination. "No agreement has been reached on important points to date," Hamburg Sued said in a statement, adding it did not expect talks to be restarted in the foreseeable future. Separately on Wednesday, tourism group TUI AG, which holds a 22 percent stake in Hapag-Lloyd, said it would have "appreciated" a merger between Hapag-Lloyd and Hamburg Sued, but it now sees an initial public offering of its stake as a more probable option. With a combined fleet of more than 250 ships, a merged entity would have given the companies much-needed global scale to survive low cargo volumes as Europe battles with economic recession. Hamburg Sued also said its sales increased by 15 percent last year compared to 2011, while earnings were still "not satisfactory". The group did not publish a 2012 profit figure.