Hapag-Lloyd and the United Arab Shipping Company (UASC) completed their merger process on May 24 in Hamburg. The combined fleet of this merger amounts to 230 vessels with a capacity of approximately 1.6 million TEU, which allows Hapag-Lloyd to strengthen its position as the fifth largest shipping company in the world while continuing to be a publicly traded company based in Hamburg, Germany.

Hapag-Lloyds CEO, Rolf Habben Jansen, said: "This is an important strategic milestone and a big step forward for Hapag-Lloyd."

"Now not only do we have a very strong market position in Latin America and the Atlantic, but also in the Middle East, wher we will become one of the main shipping companies. Our priority now is to have a quick and peaceful integration," he said.

The business combination agreement (BCA) had already been signed in Hamburg in July 2016. Since then, approximately a dozen antitrust and competition authorities around the world have studied the business to approve it.

The merger process included changes in the legal structure of the company, resulting in the consent of several banks.

In sum, 118 Hapag-Lloyd services are integrated with the 45 services that make up the UASC network. The effective administrative merger process will begin in about eight weeks and will last until the end of the third quarter of 2017, once the new UASC employees have been trained to use the Hapag-Lloyd systems and after the UASCs current transport volume starts being managed by the Hapag-Lloyd TI platform.

The combined company will transport an estimated annual volume of over 10 million TEUs.

The fifth shipping company in the world
The 58 UASC vessels will be integrated into the Hapag-Lloyd fleet, which will have a total of 230 vessels. It will be one of the youngest fleets in the industry, as the boats have an average age of only 7.2 years. The average size of the vessels in the new Hapag-Lloyd fleet will be about 6,840 TEU / vessel, i.e. approximately 30% more than the top 15 average in the industry (5,280 TEU / vessel).

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