TUI buys MS Europa 2 luxury cruise ship

BERLIN, Jan 8 (Reuters) - TUI Group, the world's largest leisure tourism company, is buying luxury cruise ship MS Europa 2 for 278 million euros ($328 million) in cash and debt, a spokesman said on Thursday, to bolster results at its Hapag-Lloyd cruise business.

TUI Group, formed from the merger of German travel and tourism group TUI AG (Xetra: TUAG00 - news) with London-listed unit TUI Travel, is trying to improve results at the loss-making Hapag-Lloyd cruise unit and has said it will break even in the current 2014/15 business year.

The purchase from current owner, Swiss businessman Otto Mihm, was first reported by German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), in an advance copy of an article to be published on Friday.

The purchase price is formed of 67 million euros in cash and 211 million in debt, the spokesman confirmed to Reuters.

FAZ said the deal meant TUI would be able to save charter rates of around 27 million euros a year and would improve profit in the 2015/16 business year by around 20 million euros.

($1 = 0.8465 euros) (Reporting by Victoria Bryan; editing by Susan Thomas)