<\/p>\n
COPENHAGEN, July 6 (Reuters) \u2013 Maersk said on Monday it had agreed to buy Sweden-based customs broker KGH Customs Services for 2.6 billion Swedish crowns ($281 million), as the container shipping group seeks to expand its end-to-end logistics services.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Maersk since 2016 has sold its oil and gas business and focussed on its container and logistics business for customers including Walmart and Nike.<\/p>\n
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It handles about one in five containers shipped by sea worldwide and is seeking to speed up investments in in-land logistics services.<\/p>\n
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Last year, it bought California-based warehousing and distribution firm Performance Team, and in February it purchased New Jersey-based customs broker Vandegrift.<\/p>\n
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\u201cKGH is another building block for us towards becoming a global integrator,\u201d Vincent Clerc, Maersk\u2019s chief commercial officer, said in an interview.<\/p>\n
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Maersk is under pressure from investors to speed up its transformation from a conglomerate. Although its share price has risen by two-thirds since March, it is still one-third below a peak three years ago.<\/p>\n
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\u201cDeveloping these customs solutions ourselves would either take too much time or be too risky,\u201d said Clerc.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Maersk wants to offer its customers the possibility to book transportation, customs clearance and final delivery at once rather than booking with two or three different suppliers, Clerc said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis allows us to take ownership of the entire shipment and move it faster,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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The company said it will acquire KGH from private equity firm Bridgepoint Development Capital on a cash and debt-free basis and expects synergies in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to reach 50 million to 75 million crowns.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
With the acquisition, Maersk will increase its presence in customs services to 22 European countries from 15 currently.<\/p>\n
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KGH has 775 employees and had revenue last year of $95 million.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
($1 = 9.2689 Swedish crowns) (Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; editing by Louise Heavens and Jason Neely)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n gCaptain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" COPENHAGEN, July 6 (Reuters) \u2013 Maersk said on Monday it had agreed to buy Sweden-based customs broker KGH Customs Services for 2.6 billion Swedish crowns ($281 million), as the container shipping group seeks to expand its end-to-end logistics services. Maersk since 2016 has sold its oil and gas business and focussed on its container and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[1184,1367,4277,1104,3830,1105,93],"class_list":["post-13008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-world","tag-acquisition","tag-broker","tag-customs","tag-expands","tag-inland","tag-logistics","tag-maersk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/13009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}