Not only in Hamburg: Hapag-Lloyd acquires stake in another German port
The second half of September 2021 has already become remarkable for the German ports. First, COSCO Shipping purchased a minor stake in one of four container terminals in the Port of Hamburg. Now, the Hamburg-based shipping line Hapag-Lloyd, which also owns a 25 per cent stake in a container terminal in the same port, extended its business to the JadeWeserPort Wilhelmshaven, a promising harbour for container transhipment westward from the Elbe estuary.
On Tuesday, 28 September, Hapag-Lloyd, one of the world’s largest shipping lines, unveiled a short but outstanding press release. The Hamburg-based announced its intention to purchase a 30 per cent stake in Container Terminal Wilhelmshaven (CTW) and 50 per cent of the shares of Rail Terminal Wilhelmshaven (RTW) at JadeWeserPort in Wilhelmshaven.
Instead of Maersk?
“The parties have agreed to not disclose the purchase price. Subject to approval by the antitrust authorities, contract closing is expected within a few months,” Hapag-Lloyd briefly specified the details of the deal. According to the shipping line, the remaining shares of the two mentioned facilities will remain under the control of the Bremen-based terminal operator Eurogate. Therefore, it is unclear whether Hapag-Lloyd will replace Maersk (via its dedicated subsidiary APM Terminals) in owning CTW’s 30 per cent stake or will join it.
Key players
It is worth noting that Hapag-Lloyd’s ships currently do not call at JadeWeserPort Wilhelmshaven. The key players for emerging German container port is Maersk and CMA CGM: the Danish shipping line together with its subsidiary Sealand performs five services to/from the port, the French company – three services. The other four shipping lines (MSC, OOCL, Evergreen, COSCO Shipping) have only one regular service per each.
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