Maersk Acquires P&O Nedlloyd
Maersk Acquires P&O Nedlloyd refers to A.P. Moller-Maersk's purchase of Royal P&O Nedlloyd for about 2.3 billion euros, announced in May 2005 and completed on August 11, 2005, making the combined business the world's largest container carrier by a wide margin.
What happened and why it matters
The takeover gave Maersk roughly 18 percent of global container capacity, the biggest single step in liner shipping consolidation up to that time. P&O Nedlloyd was itself the product of earlier British and Dutch mergers, and folding it into Maersk proved difficult, with system and service problems in 2006 that hurt customers and profits. The deal showed shippers both sides of carrier mergers: larger networks and more direct services, but fewer competing options and integration risk. Today's few large carriers and alliances, which control most capacity on Asia to U.S. and Asia to Europe lanes, grew out of deals like this one.
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Related events
Sources
- P&O Nedlloyd (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org
- A.P. Moller-Maersk plans to acquire its rival (FleetOwner) fleetowner.com
- The Maersk takeover, 2005 to 2006 (P&O Heritage) ponlheritage.com