The German international container shipping company Hapag-Lloyd has recently revealed its latest maritime masterpiece, the “Hanoi Express” container ship, which is 400m long, has a cargo capacity of 23,660 TEUs, and a payload of 225,000 tons. The Hanoi Express is one of the largest container ships in the world.
The Hanoi Express is equipped with advanced features: the ability to use dual fuel, running on both regular fuel and environmentally friendly liquefied natural gas (LNG).
This is the 3rd ship out of 12 of the same type of super large container ships of Hapag-Lloyd, built at the famous Hanwha shipyard in South Korea. Out of the 12 ships, 6 are named after Asian cities including Singapore, Mumbai, Manila, Busan, Bangkok, and Hanoi. And Hanoi is the only city in the group that does not have a port.
Hapag-Lloyd is the largest container shipping company in Germany and the 4th largest shipping company in the world, after COSCO, Maersk Group, and China State Shipbuilding, according to the Fortune Global 500 list. Hapag-Lloyd currently owns a fleet of 264 modern ships, transporting 11.8 million TEUs per year, and a total transport capacity of about 2 million TEUs, with approximately 16,100 employees including 13,500 employees in the Maritime Transport sector and 2,600 employees in the Terminal & Infrastructure sector.
Hapag-Lloyd has shares in 20 terminals in Europe, Latin America, the United States, India, and North Africa.
Hapag-Lloyd was established on September 1, 1970, as a result of the merger between Hamburg-American Line (HAPAG) and Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL). Hapag-Lloyd was acquired in 1998 by Preussag AG (renamed TUI in 2002) and became its wholly-owned subsidiary in 2002. Subsequently, the TUI Group sold its shares in Hapag-Lloyd to other investors in 2009 and 2012.
During the period of 2005-2005, Hapag-Lloyd merged with CP Ships and became the 5th largest container shipping company in the world.
Later, Hapag-Lloyd further consolidated its container business segment by merging with the CSAV shipping company in 2014 and merging with the United Arab Shipping Company (UASC) in 2017.
As of September 30, 2023, the shareholders of Hapag-Lloyd are CSAV (30.0%), Klaus Michael Kühne (including Kühne Holding AG and Kühne Maritime GmbH) (30.0%), HGV Hamburger Gesellschaft für Vermögens- und Beteiligungsmanagement mbH (13.9%), Qatar Investment Authority (12.3%), Public Investment Fund representing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (10.2%), plus a free float ratio of 3.6%.
Hapag-Lloyd recorded a significant decrease in profit in the fiscal year 2023. Based on preliminary and unaudited data, the Group’s EBITDA reached USD 4.8 billion, and the Group’s EBIT decreased compared to the same period last year to USD 2.7 billion. This was largely due to lower freight rates due to the normalization of the global supply chain.
