TUI Group


TUI AG, also known as TUI Group, is an Anglo-German multinational travel and tourism company headquartered in Hannover, Germany. It is the largest leisure, travel and tourism company in the world, and it owns travel agencies, hotels, airlines, cruise ships and retail stores. The group owns five European airlines – the largest holiday fleet in Europe – and several tour operators based in Europe.
TUI AG is jointly listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange as a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

History

The origins of the company lie in the industrial and transportation company Preussag AG, which was originally formed as a German mining company. It was incorporated on 9 October 1923, as Preußische Bergwerks- und Hütten-Aktiengesellschaft. In 1927 it was merged with the Ruhr coal company, Hibernia AG, and electricity utility to become the Vereinigte Elekrizitäts und Bergwerks AG .
After the sale of Salzgitter AG and purchase of Hapag-Lloyd AG in 1997, Preussag AG became a global enterprise in the service and leisure industry. At that time, Hapag-Lloyd held a 30% interest in the tourism conglomerate TUI, increased to 100% by 1999. In addition the company acquired 25% of Thomas Cook shares in 1997, which it doubled the following year. On 2 February 1999, the Carlson Leisure Group merged with Thomas Cook into a holding company owned by the German bank Westdeutsche Landesbank, Carlson Inc and Preussag. However, in mid-2000 Preussag acquired Thomas Cook's rival Thomson Travel and was forced to sell its majority 50.1% stake in Thomas Cook by regulatory authorities. In 2002, Preussag renamed itself TUI AG.
TUI announced a merger of its travel division with the British tour operator First Choice in March 2007, which was approved by the European Commission on 4 June 2007, on the condition that the merged company sell Budget Travel in Ireland. TUI held a 55% stake in the new company, TUI Travel PLC, which began operations in September 2007.
In April 2008, Alexey Mordashov, who purchased his first shares in TUI Travel in autumn 2007, purchased additional TUI Travel shares under S-Group in order to expand TUI Travel into Eastern Europe and Russia.
Its logistics activities, concentrated in the shipping sector, were kept separate and bundled within Hapag-Lloyd AG. A majority stake in Hapag-Lloyd was sold to the Albert Ballin consortium of investors in March 2009 and a further stake was sold to Ballin in February 2012, as TUI worked to exit from the shipping business and to optimize its tourism business with expansion in Russia, China and India under Michael Frenzel. Prior to August 2010, John Fredriksen held the largest Norwegian privately held stake in TUI Travel and had a significant influence upon TUI Travel's direction and strategy. As Alexey Mordashov through his S-Group Travel Holding increased his stake in TUI Travel to a stake larger than Fredriksen's stake, the shipping business had to be sold.
In June 2014 the company announced it would fully merge with TUI Travel to create a united group with a value of $US9.7 billion. The merger was completed on 17 December 2014 and the combined business began trading on the Frankfurt and London stock exchanges. Prior to this merger, Alexey Mordashov, the largest private shareholder in TUI Travel, held a blocking stake in TUI Travel through his S-Group. After the merger, Alexey Mordashov's stake was reduced to less than a blocking stake of 25%.
On 12 December 2016, Alexey Mordashov increased his stake in TUI Group from 18% to more than 20%. In October 2018, his 24.9% stake is the largest privately held stake in TUI Group. When Mordashov's stake increases to 25%, he will have a blocking stake in TUI Group at its annual meeting. In June 2019 Mordashov transferred 65% of his stake to the KN-Holding, owned by his sons Kirill Mordashov and Nikita Mordashov. TUI says in a statement that they ”welcome the second generation of the family amongst its shareholders”.

Operations

The TUI Group in 2014 operated:

Aviation

TUI Group owns five European airlines, inherited from TUI Travel, making it the largest tourism group in Europe. The group airlines operate both scheduled and charter flights to more than 150 destinations worldwide departing from more than 60 airports in 9 European countries. With a Fleet of 137 In May 2015, the TUI Group announced it would rebrand its existing five airline brands under one airline banner in the course of the coming years, to be titled ‘TUI’. Arkefly, Jetairfly, Thomson Airways, TUIfly and TUIfly Nordic '' will maintain the separate air operator's certificates, but will operate under "one central organisation" with "one engineering & maintenance function".
Until March 2019, TUI also owned Corsair International. It sold a majority stake to Intro Aviation of Germany. It does however retain a 27% minority stake in the airline.

Airlines

TUI Group fleet

The TUI Group fleet includes the following aircraft, as of January 2019:

Hotels

TUI's hotel brands include:
TUI sponsored Bundesliga club Hannover 96. The airline branch TUIfly's main hub is at Hannover-Langenhagen Airport and it had sponsored the football team since the 2002-2003 season. On 31 March 2011, TUI announced Hannover 96 would be playing "with a smile on their chest" for another 3 years, as it extended the sponsorship contract. The current sponsor contract ran out, but it made TUI the longest running association with any of the 18 Bundesliga teams, with 12 years as the sponsor. As part of the sponsorship TUI was the shirt sponsor, as well as having had advertisements on the perimeter fencing of the AWD-Arena, Hannover's home stadium. There was also advertising in the stadium, on the billboards by the pitch and banners around the stadium, and TUI will also remain the sponsor of the Hannover 96 Football School.

Controversies

A 2018 study in the UK found that Tui had the largest gender pay gap reported to date by a major UK company, with its male employees paid more than twice what female employees are paid.
In August 2018, some air passengers questioned the distribution of gendered stickers to children on a flight: "future pilot" for boys, "future cabin crew" for girls.