Tui Travel on Tuesday announced measures to help it refinance a £900m shareholder loan, saying it would raise £300m through a senior unsecured convertible bond and a further £140m through fresh revolving credit facilities.

Europe’s biggest travel group, formed from the merger of Germany’s Tui and UK’s First Choice in 2007, said the proceeds would go towards repaying a £900m ($1.4bn) loan from Tui AG, the German parent company, which still holds a 51.6 per cent stake in the business, as well as to pursue acquisition opportunities.

Tui AG has been under pressure to secure new funding after agreeing in August to throw a cash lifeline to container-shipping company Hapag-Lloyd, of which it owns 43 per cent.

Along with other shareholders, Tui AG agreed to lend €750m ($1.1bn) to Hapag-Lloyd – a precondition set by the German government for providing the container-shipping company with guarantees for loans totalling €1.2bn.

Hapag, which operates the world’s sixth largest container-ship fleet, has been mauled by the downturn in global freight traffic, triggered by the financial crisis and global recession. In August, Tui AG had to book €371m in charges resulting from loans to Hapag.

The Tui Travel loan had been due for repayment by January 2011, with an initial £92m due on Wednesday.

Tui Travel said it had renegotiated the terms of the loan so that the final instalment of £150m was now deferred to April 2011.

“The financing measures announced today [on Tuesday] allow us to commence repayment of our shareholder loan in a pro-active manner and will also allow us to continue to take advantage of attractive M&A opportunities,” said Peter Long, chief executive.

Tui AG will not participate in the convertible bond offering. Instead it plans to buy an additional 2.5 per cent of Tui Travel shares in the open market to avoid dilution of its voting rights.

Mr Long did not specify how much of the £440m will be used for acquisitions.

“We have spent £120m on acquisitions in the current year and it would be fair to say that we expect to spend more than that next year,” he said.

Tui Travel also announced a joint venture with Canadian tour operator Sunwing to reduce its losses in Canada.

“The group will earn a share of the profitability of the strategic venture, rather than 100 per cent of the losses generated by the current operations [which are estimated at £22m for the year to end September],” Tui Travel said.

Tui AG shares rose 2.8 per cent to €7.25.