Supply Chain Research

The Oetker Group are considering a sale of their stake in container liner Hamburg Sud, according to the Wall Street Journal. The paper also reports that Maersk may be an interested bidder. There are no official comments yet.

Hamburg Sud operates 420,000 TEU of capacity, according to Panjiva analysis of company figures including Alianca, with a weighted average age of 5.8 years. The company has followed an aggressive expansion strategy over the past 15 years, adding an compound growth of 26.7% to its capacity each year using bigger vessels each year. Yet, it currently only has eight vessels on order currently equivalent to 5% of its current owned/chartered capacity according to AlphaLiner.

Calculations based on data from company filings for Hamburg Sud and Alianca, sourced 2016/11/29. Bubble size indicates total capacity at that age and vessel capacity. Source: Panjiva

Another example of the growth aspiration of the firm has been in its performance in the Brazilian market. As discussed in Panjiva research of November 2, it has the leading market share at 25.0% of import and export volumes in the three months to September 30. This was equivalent to an increase of 1.64 percentage points on the same period a year earlier.

The growth comes from a continuing theme of the larger players taking market share from the smaller ones. This scale may make a takeover by Maersk (who have 10.6% share) or one of the other major players more complicated.

Calculations based on sum of import and export shipment data for three months vs. same period a year earlier. Chart only shows top 20 shippers by volumes handled. Source: Panjiva

Hamburg Sud has also been expanding its U.S.-bound services, though it is much smaller with a 2.8% market share. The company’s containerized volumes shipped into the U.S. increased 7.6% in the three months to October 31 on a year earlier, compared to total shipments that increased 5.3%. Its expansion was driven by marked growth in, admittedly small, Europe-sourced routes where volumes climbed 25.9% vs. 13.5% for all shippers.

Growth on the core south- and central-American routes climbed 8.8% vs. 4.8% for the market overall, reaching a 9.46% market share. Again, this share may complicate matters for larger buyers such as Maersk. Other routes – namely from Asia – were unchanged, underperforming the market overall.

Data for containerized shipments on U.S.-bound routes, segmented by continent of lading port. Lower panel shows change in total shipments for Hamburg Sud and its share of total market (ie all U.S.-bound shippers) Source: Panjiva