Joy Orlek
AP M¯LLER is willing and eager to invest further in South Africa, and participation in port privatisation is high on its agenda.
That was the message from chief executive officer and partner Jess S¿derberg who told FTW in Cape Town last week that dialogue with Portnet and Spoornet in this regard was ongoing. We operate more terminals in the world than anyone else, and we have shown our willingness to invest in South Africa, which we believe earns us some goodwill in the competitive race, he said. The Green Paper on privatisation, which was due out in November, has stalled progress for all players. If it hadn't been for this, we would have invested a lot more than we have already.
S¿derberg, who met President Thabo Mbeki, Trade and Industry minister Alec Erwin, and Transnet chairman Louise Tager and CEO Mafika Mkwanazi during his visit, clearly likes to play his cards close to his chest and gave little away in a rare press interview, stressing that financial prudence would dictate the direction of the company's future growth.
Greater emphasis on door-to-door service is clearly part of its thinking and this involves greater control of landside operations. The establishment of a depot in Cape Town, representing an investment in excess of R40-m, is in line with this philosophy. Maersk South Africa managing director Peter Ehrenreich indicated that the line was investigating the feasibility of its own depots in other vital locations, Durban being a prime example.
Commenting on further acquisitions, S¿derberg did not rule out the possibility. But we have nothing planned at the moment, and if we did have anything planned, I would probably not tell you until we had landed it, he said, a comment which he was to make fairly often in the course of our interview.
It's obvious that the shipping market is still very fragmented, even after our acquisition of Sealand. Although we might be twice the size of number 2, our global market share is still only 13%, which means number two is only around 6,5%. Further consolidation would therefore make a lot of sense.
The Safmarine acquisition, S¿derberg believes, has brought all the benefits expected and more, and he's satisfied that the dual branding has worked. I'm not aware of losing any customers, and the expected synergies have worked to the benefit of both lines.
Safmarine is doing well financially, according to chairman Tony Farr, while Maersk Sealand recorded a substantially higher profit in 2000 than in the previous year, according to S¿derberg.
Quizzed on Maersk Sealand's route expansion plans, he was non-committal on its intention to launch a transpacific service. Our global customers continually ask us to look into different services and strings. We are considering a number of these, but nothing in the immediate future. For Safmarine, he says, there's
nothing to prevent the line from expanding, as long as it makes economic sense.
As a terminal operator of note, Maersk believes in creating gateways, and its plans in South Africa are no different. We see Durban and Cape Town as the gateways to southern Africa. We have the expertise not only in handling transhipment cargo, but also moving cargo inland, and that's the concept to look at for southern Africa.
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