Lufthansa said to prepare bid for Thomas Cook's Condor

Thomas Cook shares surged on Tuesday as Deutsche Lufthansa was said to be preparing a bid for the travel company's Germany-based airline Condor.

According to Reuters, Lufthansa's chief executive officer Carsten Spohr said on the sidelines of the German airline's annual general meeting in Bonn that the group will make a non-binding offer for Thomas Cook's Condor, with an option to buy the remaining airline operations.

Spohr was cited as saying: "We decided yesterday in the meeting of the management board to bid for all of Condor with the option to be able to extend this (bid) to all Thomas Cook airlines."

At 1000 BST, Thomas Cook shares were up 9.9% at 23.83p.