The world’s biggest commercial shipping operator plans to add extensive new capacity—but it won’t be on the water.
Danish shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk AS instead wants to buy warehouses, container terminals and customs brokerage firms to boost its logistics-services capabilities, part of a strategic shift toward a landside business the company hopes will produce half its revenue in two years.
“Today up to 80 per cent of our earnings comes from container shipping,” Maersk Chief Executive Soren Skou said in an interview. “Hopefully a couple of years from now will be much closer to a 50-50 scenario between ocean and non-ocean services.”
Soren’s plan would extend a transformation of the 115-year-old maritime business that began when he became CEO in 2016. Since then, the sprawling Danish conglomerate has disposed of its oil and tanker businesses to focus more closely on building a singular company with container shipping at its centre that provides transportation and logistics services to big customers like Walmart Inc.