Maersk CEO Seeks New M&A Deals After Dropping Schenker Bid
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A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S is looking for new acquisition targets after recently walking away from what would have been its biggest ever deal, the CEO said.
Maersk “absolutely” wants to pursue new takeover targets and it’s a “key strategic element” for the company, CEO Vincent Clerc said in an interview Aut. 7 with Bloomberg TV.
The Danish shipping group last month dropped plans to bid for Deutsche Bahn AG’s logistics unit DB Schenker at a potential valuation of about $16 billion, Bloomberg News reported. The change of heart came amid an improved cash position for the Copenhagen-based company, which has raised its 2024 profit outlook three times since May as Red Sea trade disruptions have boosted freight rates.
Maersk ranks No. 5 on the Transport Topics list of the largest global freight companies. DB Schenker ranks No. 25 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest logistics companies in North America.
📢 Maersk continued to build momentum in the second quarter reporting volume growth across all segments and improved financial performance with EBIT margin reaching 7.5% compared to 1.4% in the first quarter.
👉 Read more: https://t.co/17UkgdhwP2#Maersk #maerskresults pic.twitter.com/ViPjRRGMnq — Maersk (@Maersk) August 7, 2024
“The decision that we made on Schenker was based on some integration difficulties that we could foresee after having gone into due diligence,” Clerc said. “But it is not a change of direction from a strategic perspective.”
Maersk, which controls about one-sixth of the world’s container trade, has in recent years eyed acquisitions in land-based transport and freight-forwarding businesses — where profit margins historically have been higher than at sea. The group will also continue to “prioritize organic growth,” the CEO said.
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Shares fell as much as 4.5% when trading started in Copenhagen on Aug. 7.
Maersk’s interest in DB Schenker has been far from straightforward. In February 2023, when Clerc was just one month into his job, the CEO explicitly ruled out any interest in the unit, saying there’s no “long-term shareholder value in making a huge deal.” But a year later, he told analysts that he’d changed his mind, saying Maersk had to consider buying the German target because a deal “will change the landscape in logistics.”
The shipping group also published its full second-quarter earnings report on Aug. 7, having released preliminary numbers a week earlier that included a raised earnings forecast.
During the Bloomberg interview, Maersk’s CEO dismissed the prospect of restarting a buyback program that was suspended last year when overcapacity weighed on freight rates. Clerc said there is still too much uncertainty about the macroeconomic backdrop, adding that Maersk will “remain prudent” to “make sure we have the strength in our balance sheet to weather whatever is going to come at us.”
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