Shipping Group Hapag-Lloyd have halted the planned merger with Hamburg-Sued because of the failure to come to terms on an agreement. The two are Germany's largest container shipping companies and the planned merger would have been a greater service provider that would carry both companies over the slump in the market.
The statement was released by the Albert-Ballin consortium of investors at Hapag-Lloyd, indicating the Oetker family backed Hamburg-Sued had sought for the halt to merger talks. Hapag-Lloyd remained unlisted because of the merger talks falling through.
In early March, Hapag-Lloyd announced that it posted higher losses for 2012 due to the low cargo volumes for the period. The low revenues were still because of the global recession and increased energy costs and this caused it to defer the delivery of new ships to its fleet.
According to Klaus-Michael Kuehne, co-owner of Hapag-Lloyd, it would just go public on its own if no agreement with Hamburg-Sued and the Oetker family can be forged.
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