SINGAPORE, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Neptune Orient Lines , which runs the world's eighth-biggest container shipping firm, has no plans to sell its container terminal business for now, its chief executive officer said on Wednesday.

"For the time being, we are not thinking about selling our terminal business," Thomas Held, NOL Chief Executive told a briefing.

Analysts expect Held to transform NOL -- which relies heavily on container shipping but which has made a foray into logistics to diversify its income -- into a logistics firm by bringing the two businesses closer together. Lehman Brothers said in a recent note to investors that this could include logistics acquisitions.

NOL could pay for any purchases by selling part or all of its container terminals, which Lehman Brothers estimates could be worth as much as US$1.9 billion, or more than a third of its US$5.1 billion stock market value.

REUTERS