Shares in Thomas Cook, Europe's second largest travel agent, are marked lower at lunchtime on talk that the 43.9% of the firm owned by insolvent German department store owner Arcandor will be dumped on the market next month.
The company's creditor banks BayernLB, Royal Bank of Scotland and Commerzbank have already appointed UBS to handle the sale and are believed to have received significant interest in the stake.
There is no potential buyer for all of the stock and instead the banks are going to offload the shares in the market through a placing, likely to happen when traders return to their desks after the August holidays.
Arcandor, founded in 1881, owned department store business Karstadt and mail-order operation Primondo but was forced to file for insolvency in June after a plea for state aid fell on deaf ears.
The company owned a 53% stake in Thomas Cook. It used a 43.9% stake as collateral for a €1.5bn (£1.28bn) loan from the three banks and a further 8% was used to back a convertible bond.
Shares in Thomas Cook are down 2.4p at 207.5p at lunchtime, valuing the whole of the Arcandor stake at £944m and the shares to be sold by UBS on behalf of the three banks at £782m.
The FTSE 100 index, meanwhile, remains in positive territory at 4680.58 up 35.57 points.
