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Tui AG on Tuesday said it was ‘pleased’, after its shareholders voted for its shares to be delisted in London. The Hannover, Germany-based holiday firm operates Hotels & Resorts, Cruises, Markets & Airlines, and the Tui Musement tours and activities businesses under the Tui, Hapag-Lloyd and First Choice brands. Tui held its annual general meeting on Tuesday, at which shareholders were asked to approve its plan to delist from the London Stock Exchange, while upgrading to a ’Prime Standard’ listing in Frankfurt with inclusion on the MDAX index of German mid-cap stocks. The plan, announced early last month, is to achieve ‘centralisation of liquidity’ for Tui shares. Late on Tuesday, Tui said shareholders voted clearly in favour of the proposed change to the company’s dual listing and voted by a large majority, 98.35%, to delist from the LSE. It noted that the next step will be the start of trading of the Tui share in the Prime Standard in Frankfurt at the beginning of April. Mathias Kiep, chief financial officer, said: ‘We are pleased that TUI’s shareholders have followed our recommendation and voted in favour of the delisting. They have thus also followed the proposal of the investors who brought this issue to our attention last summer. Trading in the TUI share had already shifted to Germany to a large extent. The advantages of a main listing in Frankfurt are obvious: the structures are simplified, liquidity is centralized and improved in one trading venue and the simplified structure supports the EU requirements for ownership and control of our airlines. Nevertheless, the UK market remains one of our core activities and this has no impact on our strategy of a broad shareholder base.’ Ahead of its AGM, Tui reported a ‘record’ performance in its financial first quarter, including its first-ever underlying profit in the traditionally slow period for travel operators. Its pretax loss narrowed to €103.1 million in the three months that ended December 31 from €272.6 million a year before, as revenue rose by 15% to a ‘record’ €4.30 billion from €3.75 billion. Underlying earnings before interest and tax were €6.0 million, swung from a €153.0 million Ebit loss a year before. In response the first-quarter performance, Tui on Tuesday reaffirmed its financial 2024 guidance of increasing underlying Ebit by at least 25%. In financial 2023, underlying Ebit was €977 million. Tui also expects revenue to increase by at least 10% this year from €20.67 billion last year. Copyright 2024 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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