The Hanseatic city and the container shipping company announced a deal to partially sell the port operator on Wednesday morning.
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf The planned partial sale of the Hamburg port operator HHLA to the major shipping company MSC calls on Klaus-Michael Kühne, major shareholder of the container shipping company Hapag-Lloyd. “I can only strongly advise Hapag-Lloyd to submit a takeover offer for 49.9 percent of HHLA shares immediately,” the 86-year-old billionaire told Handelsblatt on Wednesday after the MSC offer was published.
“If Hapag-Lloyd doesn’t do it, my Kühne Holding AG will consider doing it in the short term,” Kühne continued. Hapag-Lloyd initially left a query about this unanswered.
The native of Hamburg, who lives in Switzerland, sharply criticized the agreement between the Hanseatic city and the world’s largest container shipping company: “This solution is an affront, above all, to Hapag-Lloyd as the largest user and therefore the largest shipping company customer of the Port of Hamburg.”
At the same time, the deal, in which the Hanseatic city is to retain a 50.1 percent share, is half-hearted. “The entrepreneurial management of HHLA continues to lie with the city of Hamburg, according to the motto ‘port economy equals state economy’,” said Kühne. “Of course, first access to a minority stake in HHLA would have had to be given to a real Hamburg company like Hapag-Lloyd.”
The interests of his Swiss Kühne Holding AG are also known. In several newspaper interviews, Kühne had offered to take over the majority in HHLA with his holding company or the shipping company Hapag-Lloyd, in which he has a 30 percent stake.
Kühne had promised half a billion euros as the purchase price, which was apparently not enough for the Hanseatic city, which currently holds 69 percent of HHLA. The now announced deal with Hapag’s rival MSC values the entire Hamburg port operator at 1.2 billion euros.
The Hamburg native is a major shareholder in MSC rival Hapag-Lloyd.
(Photo: dpa)
Investors are apparently hoping for a bidding war. The HHLA share rose by almost 50 percent on Wednesday morning to temporarily reach 17.44 euros. MSC is offering 16.75 euros per share for the freely traded shares.
Finance Senator Andreas Dressel (SPD) tried to smooth things over in a press conference in the morning: “This is a partnership that is not directed against anyone,” he said. “We want to continue the partnership with Hapag-Lloyd.”
However, massive criticism also comes from the FDP in the Bundestag: “The mayor is squandering HHLA for nothing and is ruining the future of the port of Hamburg,” said Michael Kruse, the parliamentary group’s port policy reporter. “Years of inaction in port policy have put the mayor under pressure and are now causing him to present a half-baked construction.”
The market value had slipped to 840 million euros
MSC’s participation in HHLA’s parent company makes it impossible to more intensively connect other shipping companies to the location and, of all things, brusquely offends the Hamburg shipping company Hapag-Lloyd. “It is doubtful whether this deal will actually result in a million more containers because other shipping companies are closely analyzing the negative effects of this step on their business,” said Kruse.
At the same time, this investment will not even return HHLA to its old value. The port operator started trading on the stock exchange in November 2007 with a valuation of 4.4 billion euros. Before the MSC offer it was only traded at 840 million euros, the takeover offer improved the market value to just 1.21 billion euros.
“The only thing that can protect the people of Hamburg is a higher offer from another shipping company,” explained Kruse.
More: Billion dollar deal: MSC wants to join Hamburg port operator HHLA