Hapag Lloyd names new chairman

There are to be new hands at the helm of what will be the world’s fourth largest container line, as the merging of the entire container business of Chile’s CSAV into the German Hapag Lloyd’s f leet reaches binding agreement stage (see FTWOnline April 24 issue). In an e-mail sent to FTW by Hapag Lloyd chairman, Jurgen Weber, he announced his decision to step down early and hand over the reins to Michael Behrendt. Behrendt, in turn, will step down as CEO at the end of June, to be replaced by Rolf Habben Jansen, who has been a member of the line’s executive board since the beginning of April. Weber also expressed his pleasure at the fact that Hapag Lloyd, despite the weak market environment, had been able to achieve results that “outperform the level of its industry peers”. The integration of the CSAV container segment will make Hapag-Lloyd the fourth-largest company in the industry behind Maersk Line, CMA CGM and MSC. It will now have as many as 200 vessels, with a total container capacity of around one million TEUs. Port Technology estimated that the merged duo would have an annual turnover close to the equivalent of R130 billion. Weber told FTW that, with the closing of this transaction in the third quarter, it was the ideal time to hand over the chair to Behrendt. “He can then continue to oversee the important phase of integrating the CSAV container segment into the Hapag-Lloyd Group with his expertise,” he added. CAPTION Rolf Habben Jansen … taking the hotseat. Photo: Hapag-Lloyd