It all started with wine barrels. 177 years ago, a young man named Johann Friedrich Hillebrand founded a company in Mainz on the Rhine to transport the region’s many wines by ship. Hillebrand expanded throughout Germany, and in the second generation to North America. After the Second World War, the forwarding company switched more and more to tanks and containers. And unfermented juices as well as beer and spirits were added to the wine as objects of transport.
Hillebrand is now represented in a good 90 countries – especially where a lot of wine is grown or imported. The Mainz company works for beverage companies such as Campari or Anheuser-Busch Inbev. And soon it will belong to another group from Germany that is also active around the world: Deutsche Post wants to take over Hillebrand and pay around 1.5 billion euros for it. The logistics company announced this on Tuesday. So far, Hillebrand is owned by a Belgian financial investor.
“A unique opportunity”
With the acquisition, DHL wants to strengthen its own sea freight business – and increase its transport performance by a good sixth. The takeover was “a unique opportunity” to strengthen the freight division, said Post CFO Melanie Kreis. Hillebrand complements the existing business “excellently”, says CEO Frank Appel. The air and ocean freight division recently accounted for almost a quarter of Deutsche Post’s sales. DHL competes here with companies such as Kuehne + Nagel.
Hillebrand last had around 2,700 employees worldwide. The freight forwarder books container capacities with shipping companies worldwide and maintains appropriate partnerships. Hillebrand boss Cees van Gent used to work for DHL himself. Competition authorities now have to examine the merger plan.
Swiss Post wants to pay for the takeover from the proverbial postage fund – which in this case is meant literally: The group benefits from the fact that it transports significantly more parcels since many people have been ordering more online during the corona pandemic. In addition, world trade has recovered from the crisis faster than many experts had expected. Capacity on container ships and in cargo planes is currently considered to be scarce and expensive.