A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S will invest 758 million euros ($859 million) in a Moroccan port facility.
The world’s biggest shipping company Maersk is taking advantage of low industry prices to build its business across units. The company is planning for more deals utilizing the present attractive prices.
Following the $1 billion acquisition of a Spanish rival and an almost $1 billion deal in Mexico, the APM Terminals unit is coming up with this new deal. Maersk is going ahead with acquisitions massively mastering the market amidst its backlogs due to plunging freight rates and low oil prices disrupting its planned actions.
The setback was well exposed when the company in February reported an 84 percent slump in 2015 profit and wrote down the value of its oil assets by $2.6 billion. But the group still generated $8 billion in cash flow last year and CEO Nils Smedegaard Andersen has underscored his intention to look for takeover opportunities.
“Global trade is down at the moment, but the agreement shows the Maersk group’s strengths, that we can make long-term investments even when freight rates are challenged,” Kim Fejfer, the chief executive officer of APM Terminals
The Tangier Terminal will have Maersk Line, the group’s container shipping unit, as its main customer, Fejfer said, “we will have a very busy 2016”.
Source: Bloomberg
