Friedrich Joussen, chief executive of German tourism giantTui, said the desire of major shareholders to complete an IPO had risen in thepast six months but said that acting now would “waste value”.

However he stressed that it wasn’t necessary to wait for afull liner market recovery before launching a sale.

“..I don’t think we need two, three good quarters before wecan do a good IPO,” Joussen was quoted by Bloomberg as saying.