Sign in
DHL’s outlook for 1H 2024 “doesn’t look so bright on the macroeconomic side,” DHL CEO Tobias Meyer told Bloomberg last week. Trade is sluggish, but it is “bottoming out,” Meyer added. This has been particularly evident in the outfit’s B2B operations, with intra-European trade, road freight, and air freight shipments between China and the US all taking hits. On the bright side, DHL’s B2C e-commerce operations are going strong, “the trend is very much intact, again so that’s fully a positive in our business portfolio,” he added. DHL’s top boss had expressed many of these same sentiments in an interview with CBC last week, following the outfit’s latest earnings release.
A DB Schenker acquisition is also not in the cards: DHL has decided against moving ahead with an acquisition of German rail operator Deutsche Bahn’s logistics subsidiary DB Schenker, Meyer said. Deutsche Bahn had kicked off the sales process for its logistics subsidiary late last year, with the sale expected to be worth up to USD 21.8 bn.
SPEAKING OF THE ACQUISITION- Deutsche Bahn anticipates at least 10 bidders for its logistics subsidiary DB Schenker with expectations to ink a contract in 2H 2024, Reuters reported last week, citing people with knowledge of the matter. Initial offers with formal bids must be submitted by the end of this month, upon which the pool of bidders will be reduced ahead of a final sale in 2025, the sources said. Deutsche Bahn’s offloading of its logistics arm is expected to generate between EUR 12-15 bn, which the railway operator will apply to meet part of its EUR 30 bn debts and focus on its core railway operations, an anonymous source said.
Who is throwing their hats into the ring? Shipping giant Maersk, Danish freight forwarder DSV, and US Parcel delivery outfit UPS, as well as investors Bain, Advent, CVC, and Carlyle, have all expressed interest in acquiring DB Schenker, Reuters said citing press reports. KSA sovereign wealth fund PIF is reportedly supporting DSV’s bid, with Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ and Saudi shipping and logistics firm Bahri also eyeing bids, the newswire also said.
HD Hyundai sets up maritime nuclear energy watchdog: South Korea’s HD Hyundai Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering revealed that it has established a London-based international regulatory body — called the Nuclear Energy Maritime Organization (Nemo) — aimed at regulating and standardizing the deployment, operation and decommissioning of nuclear energy within the maritime sector, Business Korea reports. Comprising 11 founding nuclear companies from seven countries, the organization will collaborate with the International Maritime Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to “serve as a cornerstone to advance the era of offshore nuclear power,” Nemo’s inaugural chairman and IAEA’s former safety division head, Mamdouh el-Shanawany said.
