Hapag-Lloyd is being tipped to seek out further acquisition targets in order to remain in touching distance of the top names in liner shipping.
Germany’s top carrier unveiled its medium-term business plans through to 2030, which include an aggressive fleet growth with the line’s CEO, Rolf Habben Jensen claiming the goals were the company’s “most ambitious strategy to date”.
The company said yesterday it aims “to cement” its position among the top five global container lines.
As it stands, Japan’s Ocean Network Express (ONE) and Taiwan’s Evergreen are snapping at the heels of Hapag-Lloyd’s fifth spot in the global rankings, according to data from Alphaliner.
In order to keep its place in the top five, Hapag-Lloyd could seek acquisitions of smaller, regional rivals, one leading container shipping analyst has suggested. Hapag-Lloyd has absorbed three other carriers over the past decade – CSAV, UASC and NileDutch.
“To state you want to ‘cement’ your position in top 5 means you want to make sure you have that position and not just by a thin margin as is currently the case. From that I read that Hapag-Lloyd will be actively looking at more acquisitions, with a focus on increasing their footprint in Africa, India, Southeast Asia and Pacific,” suggested Lars Jensen, the CEO of advisory Vespucci Maritime, in a LinkedIn post today.
Analysts at Jefferies, an investment bank, meanwhile, suggested Hapag-Lloyd might look to boost its capacity through the charter markets.
HMM, which Hapag-Lloyd looked at buying last year, and ONE have also made public bold growth plans through to 2030 in recent weeks. HMM stated this week it intends to nearly double its box fleet to 1.5m teu by the start of the next decade, while ONE’s medium-term business plan seeks to grow its operated fleet to 3m teu by 2030, at an annualised growth rate of 10% a year.
All this robust growth plans by global liners comes at a time where the industry is having to come to grips with overcapacity brought about by record amounts of new tonnage delivering for much of the rest of this decade.
In other Hapag-Lloyd news, the Hamburg-headquartered liner and Seaspan have entered into a partnership agreement to retrofit and convert five 10,100 teu containerships powered by conventional MAN S90 engines to dual-fuel engines capable of operating on methanol.
