A Means to an End – The Mergers & Acquisition Award

With bank financing being the lubricant for M&A deals, one might have expected little activity in this category. On the contrary, there were, in fact, a number of important M&A transactions done in 2009. One of the largest and most interesting was the sale by TUI AG of Hapag-Lloyd AG to the Albert Ballin Consortium. No longer a strategic fit to its business, TUI, with Citi acting as its advisor, began the process of selling the fifth largest liner company in 2008 and received indications of interest from both strategic and financial buyers. Agreement was reached with the Hamburg Consortium in October of that year as the perfect storm approached. Despite the many travails of getting the deal done in this period of uncertainty and weakness, the sellers, with the assistance of Citi prevailed, closing the transaction in March thanks to some creative structuring including the buyback of a 43.33% entrepreneurial stake.

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