You can now read on 105 pages what the future of the Port of Hamburg should look like. On Monday, the Mediterranean Shipping Company, or MSC for short, published its offer to take over up to 49.9 percent of the shares in the port logistics company HHLA. It is the next step in a major development: no other topic has caused such a stir in Hamburg in recent weeks. In mid-September, around 1,000 employees of Hamburger Hafen- und Logistik AG (HHLA) gathered for a demonstration in downtown Hamburg, and the mood was heated. “We are the port,” they shouted in unison.
Now it’s getting more concrete: On Monday, the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (Bafin) approved the takeover offer, meaning that MSC dutifully published the documents. The Swiss now want to buy the shares traded on the stock exchange. 69.25 percent of HHLA currently belongs to the city of Hamburg; in the future it wants to be content with a narrow majority of 50.1 percent. Hamburg had never made such a pact with anyone before, and the city did it completely in secret. Which in turn offended many people in Hamburg and in the industry. “The Hamburg Senate did not take the HHLA employees along in the process at all,” says Christian Baranowski, Chairman of the HHLA Group Works Council. “There is a great loss of trust, including in politics.”
Many see the deal as a sell-out of the port. To understand the dimensions of the agreement, you have to look at how the port has been organized so far: three of the four terminals belong to HHLA, one to its competitor Eurogate. Hapag-Lloyd has a 25.1 percent stake in the Altenwerder terminal, and the Chinese state shipping company Cosco has a 24.9 percent stake in Tollerort. These are only fractions compared to the MSC deal.
Many in the industry believe that MSC is not interested in strengthening the port of Hamburg
In principle, the port can really use new money: container throughput fell by 11.7 percent in the first half of 2023; things have been going downhill for years, while other European ports are holding up better on the market. The city is paying for the shares with 230 million from MSC, and MSC is offering 16.75 euros each for the remaining shares. That is more than five euros more than before the partnership was announced. MSC also promised to bring one million more standard containers to Hamburg per year from 2031 and thus increase the throughput volume. “Where these containers are supposed to come from is a mystery to us,” says works council member Baranowski. The workers fear that the cargo will only be shifted around, i.e. withdrawn from other terminals, in Bremen for example. “That’s not in our interest either,” he says.
Hamburg is a very important market for MSC, said Soren Toft, head of the shipping company, when announcing the cooperation. The city should become a hub in global shipping. However, some in the industry believe that MSC is not interested in strengthening the port of Hamburg. “We assume that MSC is much more interested in Metrans and the logistics chain,” says Baranowski. Metrans is a subsidiary of HHLA that ensures the containers are transported via rail. MSC has already secured some market shares in rail transport in Europe, in Spain, Portugal, Italy and Switzerland. According to MSC’s plans, employee representatives would no longer be able to have a say in the future of Metrans. “The way the company is now planned, we on the supervisory board will end up just nodding our heads and no longer have a say in important decisions,” says Baranowski. It demands that employee representatives be represented on the supervisory or administrative board.
The fact that Hamburg’s mayor and the economic and finance senators want to do business with MSC of all companies surprises even insiders: the shipping company based in Geneva is considered a particularly secretive company. It is a family business headed by the 83-year-old Italian patriarch Gianluigi Aponte. MSC is not listed on the stock exchange, so business figures are not disclosed. What was significant was MSC boss Soren Toft’s statement in an NDR interview: They would disclose what was necessary, “but beyond that, nothing.” MSC has invested enormously in recent years in new ships and terminals; it is the most powerful shipping company in the world. But there are always reports of drug deals that MSC has no control over. For the shipping company, Hamburg is just one port location among many: it is involved in more than 70 ports worldwide. From the Hamburg port workers’ perspective, this also poses risks: “If you have terminal shares everywhere in Europe, you can of course play the employees off against each other,” says Baranowski. If some go on strike, the load will be directed to another location owned by the company.
Hapag-Lloyd was also interested
Hamburg’s politicians had also found other interested parties: just a few days before the MSC deal, Klaus-Michael Kühne had expressed his interest in a takeover. The largest German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd, in which Kühne holds shares, had tried to get involved in the previous months. But there was obviously no agreement. Finance Senator Andreas Dressel, who helped negotiate the deal, also gave an insight into the background at the announcement: “We have to keep the majority,” he said. Kühne and Hapag-Lloyd obviously claimed the larger part of the port for themselves.
If you want to keep up with the competing ports in Hamburg, you will have to invest a lot in the coming years. More than the city has available: it now pays around 300 million euros per year just for maintenance, said Mayor Peter Tschentscher. And there’s still a lot to come. Compared to other ports, Hamburg is not yet well developed when it comes to automation. And that’s exactly why port workers keep going on strike: What will happen to their jobs if machines take over? Up to 500 jobs could be eliminated if the containers were automatically transported from the ship to land.
Shareholders can accept the MSC offer until November 20th, after which there will be a shorter additional period. HHLA plans to issue a statement in the next two weeks. According to MSC’s plans, the board should draw up the economic and strategic planning for the future of the port, but MSC should also have extensive say – in the form of a subsidiary based in Cyprus.