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It has been tumultuous week for Hapag-Lloyd as the German carrier pressed to push through its partial stock market listing – otherwise known as an IPO – while existing shareholders have seen the value of their stakes fall.

And in the case of CSAV, the company’s largest single shareholder, this could lead to a write-down of almost €1bn, according to one analyst.

With open trading of the shares set to commence on Friday, the company has had to twice lower the price range of the new issues it hopes to trade, as well as extending the initial offer period.

Originally priced at €23-29 per share, the company downgraded that to €20-22, as a result of “ongoing market volatility”, and announced yesterday that it had raised $300m from placing 13.2 million shares priced at €20 each.

Another two million “over-allotment shares” are to come from the holdings of TUI, and these are expected to raise another $45m, taking overall capital raised from the exercise to $345m, or €304m. The cash will be used for new investment in vessels and containers, the company said.

However, Alphaliner pointed out that weak demand and the low pricing of the offer meant that the line’s existing four major shareholders – CSAV, Kuehne Maritime, TUI and the Hamburg municipality – would likely have to “revalue their investments in Hapag-Lloyd to reflect the lower market value of their shares”.

Alphaliner calculated that at the beginning of June, CSAV’s 34% stake had a book value of €1.66bn, which at a €20 per share price would need to be revalued at €713m, meaning some €953m had been wiped off its shareholding value.

Likewise, travel company TUI, which has been looking to exit the company for a number of years and had hoped this would be achieved through the selling its shares on the Frankfurt and Hamburg bourse, has seen its 13.9% stake written down.

“The stake is currently classified as “financial assets available for sale” at a value of €489m, but would only be worth €291m at the lower end of the IPO offer price, implying a potential hit of some €192m for TUI,” Aphaliner said.

The looming write-down had forced TUI to withdraw 300,000 shares from the over-allotment portion, but will see an immediate loss on those that it does sell.

“HGV (the city of Hamburg investment arm) and Kuhne Maritime do not reveal their current holding value of their Hapag-Lloyd shares but they are also expected to take a significant loss on the IPO,” Alphaliner concluded.

And Loadstar sources in the German shipping hub report that some city figures are have begun to ask why the flotation was not delayed until market conditions improved.

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