Who Owns TUI?

TUI has no controlling owner, and its largest shareholding has an unusual history. TUI AG is a German company listed in Frankfurt, having left the London Stock Exchange in 2023. Its biggest stake was built by the Russian businessman Alexey Mordashov, who was sanctioned in 2022 and transferred it. Companies House records TUI Airways Limited (00444359, incorporated 28 October 1947) under the group’s UK company. Ownership verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns Tui today?

TUI AG of Hanover is owned by its shareholders. No single holder controls it, though the register of large holdings is more concentrated than at most listed travel companies.

The British companies sit at Wigmore House, Luton:

• TUI AIRWAYS LIMITED (00444359), incorporated 28 October 1947 — the airline
• TUI UK Limited — its person with significant control, at 75% or more of shares and votes, notified 21 September 2016

A 1947 company number for an airline flying today is a genuine survival. The company predates the modern package holiday industry entirely and has carried several names through the British charter airline business.

Ultimate parent and corporate structure

TUI AG is the ultimate parent. Above the UK companies the chain runs to Germany, and Companies House does not follow it.

The listing move is worth knowing because it changed where the ownership information lives. TUI had a dual listing in London and Frankfurt for years, a legacy of its 2007 merger with the British company First Choice. In 2023 it delisted from London and consolidated in Frankfurt, on the grounds that the London listing added cost without adding liquidity.

So a company that owns one of Britain’s largest tour operators and airlines is now disclosed under German market rules. Its major shareholdings appear in German voting-rights notifications rather than in filings a UK investor would encounter first.

Major shareholders or controlling persons

The largest position has an unusual provenance. Alexey Mordashov, the Russian industrialist behind Severstal, built a holding in TUI over many years that at times approached a third of the company — comfortably the largest, though short of control.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Mordashov was sanctioned by the European Union in March 2022. The stake was subsequently transferred within his family, and reporting has described it passing to entities associated with his wife.

That raises a question the register cannot settle. A sanctioned individual transferring a shareholding to a family member may genuinely relinquish it, or may not — and no companies register anywhere can distinguish the two. This is precisely the situation beneficial ownership rules exist to address and the situation in which they are weakest, because the disclosure records the legal holder, not the arrangement behind them.

Beyond that, TUI’s shares are held by institutions and private investors, with no other holder near control. The company also has a substantial retail shareholder base in Germany.

Official records and evidence

The UK company numbers, the 28 October 1947 incorporation and the TUI UK Limited PSC entry are Companies House records and can be checked directly.

They establish nothing about who owns TUI. The register names one UK holding company and stops well short of Germany — so the shareholdings above come from German voting-rights notifications and TUI AG’s annual report, not from any British filing.

The sanctions position is a matter for the UK’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation and the EU’s own regime, which maintain their own lists — a separate register from Companies House, and the right one to consult on that question. Companies House does not verify most filed information.

Searching for “TUI” is also unhelpful: over 3,600 companies match, most unrelated. Two carry TUI as a previous name and now trade as something else entirely — a Cambridge college property company and a Surrey retailer.

Ownership history and changes

TUI’s origins are startling for a holiday company: it descends from Preussag, a Prussian state mining and metals conglomerate founded in 1923.

• 1947 — the British airline company that became TUI Airways is incorporated.
• 1990s — Preussag begins buying travel businesses and exits mining and shipping.
• 2002 — renames itself TUI AG, completing the transformation from industrial conglomerate to tourism group.
• 2007 — merges its travel arm with Britain’s First Choice to create TUI Travel, listed in London.
• 2014 — TUI AG and TUI Travel fully merge; the Thomson brand is retired in favour of TUI in 2017.
• 2022 — Mordashov is sanctioned.
• 2023 — TUI delists from London.

A German mining conglomerate becoming Europe’s largest tour operator is among the most complete corporate reinventions on this site — comparable in kind to Next’s descent from a Victorian tailor, and larger in scale.

Related companies and brands

TUI owns TUI Airways, Marella Cruises, TUI Blue and Riu hotels in part, and formerly the Thomson and First Choice brands, both now absorbed into TUI.

It is not connected to Thomas Cook, which collapsed in 2019 and whose brand was bought by China’s Fosun and later by eSky — a name that survives its company, the same pattern this site documents at Debenhams and Wilko.

Nor is TUI connected to Jet2, easyJet holidays or On the Beach, all separately owned. TUI is unusual among British holiday brands in owning the airline, the hotels and the tour operator together — most competitors own one part and buy the rest.