Maersk against MSC: This is the great maritime battle to hunt the 'white whale' of world trade

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By TP

For decades, Aarhus Havn was a maersk territory. As the most active commercial port in Denmark, the city had been a vibrant center for the ship's giant. Therefore, when the port of Aarhus announced its plans for a new terminal, it was taken for granted that the company based in Copenhagen would keep the business. However, the final decision, taken at the end of 2024, surprised everyone. Not only did Maersk lose, but the contract passed to MSC Mediterranean Shipping based in Geneva, its fiercest competitor and partner during the last decade in a conflicting alliance to share ships. «If the relationship was already bad, this has only worsened,» explains Peter Sand, chief analyst of the Xeneta load analysis platform, based in Oslo. «MSC wants to be in command now,» he warns. This complicated alliance, product of the relentless pressure suffered by the industry to reduce costs, officially reached a break point this week. The joint company, baptized as 2m, was dissolved on January 31. In parallel at the end of the agreement, the two largest container carriers in the world look While they find the solution to this unknown, the consequences of divorce will be felt in all companies that depend on maritime trade. MSC controls more than 20% of the global container capacity and Maersk clings to a market share of 14%. Analysts believe that the stars are aligning to cause a price war, since companies in this maritime industry compete for adapting to geopolitical disorders that are reconfiguring the world economy.msc wants to be the only oceanic heavyweight and declares a «Transportist without alliances» in a dominated industry just a few years ago by three associations. It is likely that your leadership will be extended, depending on the number of new ships that enter into service. For its part, Maersk is perfecting a comprehensive logistics network in land and sea, and has a new maritime partner in Hapag Lloyd AG, based in Hamburg (Germany). They have formed the Gemini Cooperation alliance. His approach will be based on punctuality on deliveries, a concept that was lost during the commercial interruptions of the last five years that, on average, prevented half of the ships from arriving in time. “Gemini is the new boy in the neighborhood, who is really trying to do something different, ”explains Trine Nielsen, global maritime loading director in Flexport, a logistics company. «MSc, on the other hand, attaches to the original and traditional way of carrying out maritime transport,» he adds. The 2m association that now expires has been seen for a long time involved in tensions and rivalries in the management, which reached their peak in 2019. It was then that the Italian founder of MSC, Gianluigi Aponte, surprised the Danish shipping industry by hiring Soren Toft, 50, as executive director. Toft was not only Danish, but it was also until that moment the director of Operations of Maersk. Toft was losing ground in front of Vincent Clerc as heir to the then executive director, Soren Skou, at the head of the Danish giant. With Toft in command and increased pandemic shipments that allowed an increase in benefits, MSC, with an enviable treasury position, embarked on a rapid expansion and in 2022 he achieved Aponte's dream of becoming the container carrier larger in the world, displacing Maersk.en MSc, a family capital company, decision -making is concentrated in the senior executives. The founder and president of the group, Aponte, 84, holds periodic meetings with his son Diego Aponte, president of the group, and other senior executives on Saturdays. The mystery halo also involves its strategy and results: only a small group is allowed to see the annual reports, according to a former employee, who asked not to be identified. The combination of MSC discretion and agility did not always align well with Maersk's transparency and punctuality culture. The Danish company, which is quoted in the stock market although the weight of the multimillionaire family Maersk-Uggla is still large, is famous for complying in time with delivery commitments. However, Maersk found it difficult to maintain that reputation during the 2m alliance. If about 85% of the time before 2015, the reliability of the global schedules of the Alliance has fallen to about 50%, which means that customers receive their load on average approximately five days late, according to data of it is intelligence.

More ports

«Maersk used to be a shipping company with which the clock could be adjusted,» says Niels Madsen, Vice President of Products and Operations of Sea-Intelligence. «MSc, on the other hand, comes when it arrives,» he adds. Johan Sigsgaard, Director of Products of the Ocean Division of Maersk, attributes delays to bad weather, geopolitical tensions, covid, congestion, strikes and excess scales in the ports. Maersk and MSC continued to add ports to their routes to fill their new 400 -meter megabuques, Sigsgaard adds, but that «does not work» approach. “The quality of the service was reseaking. The more ports are there to make scales, the less reliable the service is. In time, according to some former employees. The delays led Maersk to reconsider the design of his network. Instead of adding scales, Maersk wanted to reduce them. «We had to get rid of some of the traditional logic on how to design an ocean offer,» says Sigsgaard.MSC did not join the new strategy. In August 2020, the company embarked on a historic second -hand shopping wave, acquiring 405 ships in four and a half years. This added a total capacity of 1.7 million containers measured in 20 feet units, equivalent to the total size of Evergreen Line, the seventh largest container carrier in the world.The founder and president of MSC, Gianluigi Aponte. Damien Meyer (AFP / Getty Images) Toft refused to participate in this report and MSC referred to his comments in an interview with Bloomberg News published last September in which he said that the company wanted To be able to provide speed, agility and decision -making capacity that we want for our clients. ” In addition, the manager added that the MSC request portfolio is a signal to the market for truth for maritime transport «and that» we are ordering assets that will be in our fleet for the next 25 to 30 years. «Although MSC It does not quote, horizons as long as those posed by its executive director exhaust the patience of Wall Street. If the price of its shares serves as a reference, Maersk is having difficulty finding its place in the market a decade after its business transformation. After a strategy renovation in 2016, the company sold its oil business and decided 10,000 million dollars, which would have been even greater if Maersk would not have abandoned the race to buy the German logistics giant DB Schenker in July. Finally, the Danish DSV A/S firm bought it for 14.3 billion euros. The strategy «has not yet really demonstrated its value,» according to Mikkel Emil Jensen, Sydbank's senior analyst, which recommends selling Maersk shares. «In terms of profitability and growth, they are still where one expected to be.»

Tariff threat

The shares rose 1.9% in 2024, below the 16% increase of the Bloomberg Intelligence Global Container Shipping index. One of the reasons is that the impulse to freight rates for interruptions in the Red Sea has faded and could disappear completely if the Suez channel becomes safe to cross it again. Tariffs planned by US President Donald Trump, and inevitable reprisals will probably affect global trade and alter the demand for container transport. To aggravate the problem, it is expected that at least 250 new ships will be delivered in 2025, according to Alphalainer's data, which generates fears of excess capacity. No analyst covers MSC because it is a family business that does not quote on the stock market. But industry observers say that its large cash reserves, product of the pandemic, place it in a solid position. John McCown, a veteran of the industry and founder of Blue Alpha capital, estimates that the MSC cash reserve is 73,000 million dollars. That figure «could be conservative,» he added. In comparison, Maersk's cash and equivalents in the third quarter totaled 22.3 billion dollars and Hapag-Lloyd was $ 4,830 million. «I would not be surprised if I was very MSC in the news with a great acquisition or investment to use part of that cash mountain,» says McCown. According to Alphalainer data, the company currently owns or rent 886 ships and has 132 orders. In comparison, Maersk controls 722 and has 51 for delivering. It is in this context in which on February 1 Maersk and MSC officially undertook separate paths. Gemini will offer less direct routes to the ports and will focus on the centers where the two partners control container terminals. In theory, that should help reduce congestion delays. However, the bet depends on the ability to manage shorter circuits with large ships between smaller “feeders” centers and ships to deliver the load to its final maritime destinations. In preparation for the launch, Maersk has invested 3,000 million dollars since 2020 to expand eight terminals in ports such as Tangier in Morocco and Róterdam in the Netherlands. The traditional MSC strategy, which will now operate alone, covers the main commercial arteries with more direct scales in the ports. While the 2M alliance was limited to 15 centers, Gemini will only use between eight and nine ports from February 1. The MSC independent network will have 12 scales in the ports. According to Sea-Intelligence data, the reliability of schedules in the shipping sector has never exceeded 85% and in recent years has had difficulty overcoming 60%. That does not mean that 90% is unattainable, said Madsen from Sea-Intelligence, but will entail additional costs: more fuel and higher terminal rates. «If you are willing to pay, everything is possible,» says Madsen. «All shipping companies should be able to achieve a reliability of 90% if they are willing to pay what is needed.» According to Xeneta data, reserves in the two new networks were opened in December and the restructuring of the routes is already giving rise at lower prices for customers. On the main commercial route between China and Europe, MSC offers rates below the market average. In the case of Maersk there are no official figures, but a merchandise transport analyst says that it also offers rates below the market average. MSC has “many possibilities of success operating its own line in the traditional way,” says Brian Nemeth, global co -director of Logistics and Transportation of Alixpartners. Load owners have historically preferred direct routes with fewer scales, he argues. Gemini, on the other hand, faces the difficult task of trying a new business model in a sector that is not given to the changes. Everyone wants to hunt the great white whale, but only one will achieve it.