Who is puffing in Germany on MSC which lands in the port of Hamburg
At the port of Hamburg, the largest in Germany, a bidding war could break out after MSC's offer to acquire 49.9% of HHLA. German freight forwarders – such as Kuehne, Eurokai and Hapag-Lloyd – are not happy with the Italian-Swiss presence
Who is against Hamburg on MSC?
The Italian-Swiss maritime transport company Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), one of the most important in the world, could obtain a 49.9 percent share of HHLA, the main terminal company of the port of Hamburg, the largest in Germany. This would be a deal worth almost 1.3 billion euros which would still keep control of the port with the city of Hamburg, with 50.1 percent.
MSC IN THE PORT OF HAMBURG? A “CATASTROPHE” AND A “CONFRONT”
A bidding war has broken out for the port of Hamburg, a "bidding war", wrote Reuters . The German billionaire Klaus-Michael Kühne , owner of the Swiss-German logistics company Kuehne + Nagel, intends to present a counter-offer to that of MSC. Eurokai, a German container transport company, could also make a proposal, defining MSC's possible entry into HHLA as a "catastrophe". Finally, Hapag-Lloyd, another big name in the shipping industry, could enter the competition.
According to Reuters sources, if the MSC-HHLA deal were to go through, Hapag-Lloyd would find itself paying the costs for the use of the terminal to its major competitor and it would be an "affront". The specialized site Ship2Shore added that Hapag-Lloyd plans to reduce its movements at the port by 70-80 percent.
THE CONSEQUENCES FOR HAMBURG AND THE OTHER PORTS
As reported by Transport Europe , MSC could bring one million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit: it is the standard container size) to the Port of Hamburg terminals controlled by HHLA, a 12 percent increase over 2022 volumes.” But the abandonment of Hapag-Lloyd” for reasons of competitiveness, we read, “would bring the situation to a draw. In short, the replacement of Hapag-Lloyd ships with those of MSC would take place, without a significant increase in traffic".
Other German ports such as Wilhelmshaven and the JadeWeserPort project (where Hapag-Lloyd participates in the management of the terminal) would benefit from such a scenario.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/msc-porto-amburgo-proteste-germania/ on Tue, 19 Sep 2023 13:50:01 +0000.