FRANKFURT—A bank-led investor group, which includes a majority owner of Kuehne & Nagel, is mulling a bid for TUI’s shipping business, a source familiar with the matter said.

The source said no offer has been made, adding that Klaus-Michael Kuehne, who controls Swiss logistics company Kuehne & Nagel could participate.

A TUI spokesman repeated that the company would consider strategic options for the group at a supervisory board meeting on Monday, and declined further details.

Analysts value Hapag-Lloyd, with around 140 container ships, at 4.2 billion to 4.6 billion euros ($6.6 billion-$7.2 billion). By comparison, Singapore’s Neptune Orient Lines, rumoured to be interested in Hapag-Lloyd, has 120 container ships and an enterprise value of S$4.6 billion ($3 billion).

Separately, German newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported that TUI investor Alexei Mordashov plans to boost his stake in the company to at least 10 percent.

The Russian steel tycoon owns 5 percent of TUI’s shares through private investment vehicle S-Group Capital Management.

The newspaper quoted banking sources as saying Mordashov would also join TUI’s supervisory board, adding that the Russian should help form the company into a tourism group.

TUI shares rose this week on growing speculation that Chief Executive Michael Frenzel will bow to shareholder pressure and split up the tourism and shipping firm.

Frenzel, the architect and dogged supporter of TUI’s twin-pillar strategy of tourism and shipping, in January proposed fully merging container shipping unit Hapag-Lloyd with the parent to prevent a break-up of the group.

But major shareholders lambasted the plan.

Investors have said it remained to be seen whether TUI, which also owns 51 percent of TUI Travel Plc, Europe’s biggest tourism company, would merge Hapag-Lloyd, the world’s fifth-largest container shipping company, with another container group or sell it.

Hapag-Lloyd is a German transportation company comprising a cargo container shipping line, Hapag-Lloyd Container Line, and a cruise line, Hapag-Lloyd Cruises. It was formed in 1970 as a merger of two 19th Century companies, Hapag, which dated from 1847, and Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) or North German Lloyd (NGL), which was formed in 1856. Hapag-Lloyd was acquired in 1998 by TUI AG (Hanover) and became its fully-owned subsidiary in 2002.

The Hapag-Lloyd group focuses on global container liner shipping. With the acquisition of CP Ships in 2005, the company became one of the top five shipping companies in the world. The Hamburg-based company is present in more than 100 countries and operates about 340 sales offices.

In the first nine months of 2007, Hapag-Lloyd reported revenues of around 4.5 billion. Hapag-Lloyd transported approx. 4.1 million TEU worldwide an increase of 10 percent in the same period of last year.

Hapag-Lloyd sets industry standards in terms of customer orientation, service and productivity. The company deploys 142 containerships featuring more than 514,000 TEU in capacity across five regions worldwide: North Europe, South Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia.

Hapag-Lloyd Cruises is a top supplier of premium and luxury cruises in German-speaking countries.