Singapore’s Neptune Orient Lines has confirmed it wants to buy Hapag-Lloyd, the container unit of Germany’s TUI. NOL, which is Southeast Asia’s largest container-shipping company, said it has submitted an indicative non-binding bid, but has not disclosed how much for.

TUI, which is Europe’s biggest holiday tour operator set Monday as the deadline for initial bids. A successful merger would create the world’s third-largest container shipping firm.

But the Singapore firm faces competition from a group of Hamburg-based investors which says it has made a “competitive” offer to keep Germany’s top shipping group under German control.

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