Linklaters advises the principal shareholder Compañía Sudamericana de Vapores S.A. (CSAV) on the IPO of the container shipping company Hapag-Lloyd AG.

In a public offering in Germany and Luxembourg as well as in international private placings, up to 15,721,035 registered shares will be offered, of which up to 11,503,197 shares are registered shares to be issued in connection with a capital increase against cash contributions and up to 2,300,639 shares are existing registered shares held by the travel group TUI AG (TUI). A greenshoe option of up to 1,917,199 existing registered shares of TUI is intended to help stabilise the market. All shares of Hapag-Lloyd AG will be admitted to trading on the regulated market of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (prime standard) and on the regulated market of the Hamburg Stock Exchange. The volume of new registered shares intended to be placed will lead to gross issue proceeds for the company of U.S.$300m (approx. €265m). The anchor investors CSAV and Kühne Maritime GmbH will take a share of U.S.$30m each.

Prior to the IPO, CSAV, one of the most important shipping companies in Latin America, holds an interest of 34 percent and is thus the largest shareholder in the container shipping company. Kühne Maritime GmbH holds 21 percent. The third anchor shareholder is the City of Hamburg, holding 23 percent. TUI holds 14 percent, but intends to dispose of some of its shares as part of the IPO. The remaining shares are held by several other shareholders.

A Linklaters team led by Wolfgang Sturm (Corporate/M&A, Düsseldorf) advised on the transaction. The team also included Dr Herbert Harrer (Capital Markets, Frankfurt), Oliver Rosenberg (Tax, Düsseldorf), Sebastian Goslar and Ricarda Grzeschik (both Corporate/M&A, Düsseldorf).