TUI to finance hotels, cruise ships with investment funds -report

BERLIN (Reuters) - TUI is planning to finance new hotels and cruise ships by setting up investment funds rather than through borrowing, its strategy director was quoted by German magazine WirtschaftsWoche as saying.

The world's largest holiday company had to be propped up with billions of euros of government aid after its travel business collapsed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

TUI has been slow to recover and because of its existing debt, which has grown during the pandemic, TUI had to look for other ways to finance new cruise ships or hotels, Peter Krueger was quoted as saying by WirtschaftsWoche on Wednesday.

"There is enough money in the market and we already have very concrete interested parties," Krueger said, adding that the investment fund plans were fairly advanced.

"Our integration takes out most of the risk for investors," said Krueger, who plans to present details within weeks.

WirtschaftsWoche said TUI plans to build more than 100 new hotels and up to six new cruise ships in the coming years.

(Reporting by Miranda Murray; Editing by Alexander Smith)