Global shipping giant Maersk has found possible buyers for its 30.75% share of Russian container terminal operator, Global Ports Investments.
Credit: Clearsunrise / Shutterstock
The Danish shipping giant is speaking to several potential buyers but did not give any names away, said Reuters.
Global Ports operates six terminals in Russia and two in Finland. Maersk – who bought its stake in the company in 2012 – first informed its partners and Global Ports of its decision to sell its share on March 11.
The other shareholders are the Russian businessman Sergey Shiskarev and the Russian state nuclear company Rosatom.
In early March, Maersk also suspended all container shipping to Russia and Belarus. Subsequently, the company said it would be ending all its operations and this week it had its final cargo shipment from Russia.
In a press briefing, Chief Executive Søren Skou said: "We will not return until we think that Russia again plays a good and constructive role in the world".
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Maersk currently has two warehouses in Russia, a St. Petersburg storage facility and a team working in Novorossiysk, a port city in the Black Sea. In its May 4 released Q1 2022 report, Maersk said that “operations in those warehouses continue until a solution is found”.
In the report, Maersk also shared that it delivered its best earnings quarter ever – despite global sanctions against Russia and transportation route disruptions.
The shipping industry has experienced major setbacks since the start of the Russian war on Ukraine. According to The New York Times, cargo containers have been piling up at European ports, there are major bottlenecks and more than 100 ships and their crews have been stranded in Ukraine. Missiles have even hit several commercial vessels.
The New York Times said, “The most visceral blow is being felt near the heart of the war zone, in the Black Sea”.
Maersk said it had been trying to help the bottlenecks by investing in extra equipment, stating in the report that: “The turmoil and uncertainty caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine [has] further added to the bottlenecks”.
Maersk was the largest container shipping line and vessel operator in the world for 25 years until it was unseated by the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) in January. It has a market share of just under 17% and 83,000 employees worldwide, including 600 employees – most of them seafarers – in Ukraine.
In its Q1 2022 report, Maersk said: “Maersk offers on-ground support to the Ukrainian based employees and their families who have asked for the company’s assistance, including those who wish to be relocated”. The shipping company also said it has set up aid hubs outside Ukraine to help with the relocation.
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“The safety and stability of our people remains at the forefront of our minds, and we have worked steadily to ensure that our people are safe,” Maersk said in the report. Its offices in Far East Russia, Novorossiysk, Kaliningrad and Belarus are set to close in the summer, while its Saint Petersburg and Moscow offices will close at the end of the year.
Maersk is part of the UN-led Logistics Emergency Team (LET) with three other major logistics and transportation companies – Agility, UPS, and DP World – and so has been working with the UN and other global organisations to facilitate the flow of aid and relief supplies into Ukraine.
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