While acknowledging there is still more consolidation to come in liner shipping, Maersk Line, the world’s largest boxline, has made it public it is on the hunt for targets outside of shipping as it looks to position itself alongside the likes of parcel giants UPS and FedEx in the next three to five years.
Speaking with Bloomberg yesterday, Maersk Line’s CFO and head of transformation and strategy, Jakob Stausholm, said the company was eyeing land-based acquisitions to meet requirements from its clients.
“We’re currently very big in the ocean segment, and we’d rather grow in non-ocean, so it may be a good idea to look for M&A targets there,” Stausholm said, adding: “We’re not going to be direct competitors to FedEx and UPS, but we will see them as peers. They are the global integrators in their industries and we want to become that in our industry.”
Stausholm’s thoughts were echoed yesterday by his boss, Soren Skou, who discussed Maersk’s planned transformation into a total logistics provider at an investor presentation.
“We want our customers, the people who ship goods from one end of the earth to the other, to be able to do that while just dealing with Maersk,” Skou said. “We want to be able to carry the box from one port to the other, we want to be able to provide the inland service, customs house brokerage, finance the goods, insure the goods, and any other relevant services.”
Under Skou, Maersk has been selling off its energy-related businesses to focus on container transport while also absorbing rival liner, Hamburg Sud.
