Expert: Yang Ming, HMM, and ONE Should Collaborate with MSC

According to consultants at AlixPartners, shipping companies Yang Ming, HMM, and ONE should consider collaborating and sharing space with MSC amidst global shipping alliance restructuring preparations for early next year.

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According to consultants at AlixPartners, the members of THE Alliance are advised to negotiate space-sharing agreements with Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC), the world's largest container shipping company, as the global shipping alliances gear up for major restructuring in early 2025.

MSC is set to depart from Maersk in the 2M alliance on all East-West services by early 2025. While Maersk has formed the Gemini Cooperation with Hapag-Lloyd from THE Alliance, effective from February 2025, MSC has declared its intention to operate independently.

At the end of February 2024, Ocean Alliance members, one of the three largest alliances, sought to dispel rumors of departures by committing to cooperation until 2032, a move that keeps HMM, Yang Ming, and Ocean Network Express (ONE) within THE Alliance as the smallest alliance.

AlixPartners remarked: "The Ocean Alliance’s somewhat surprising announcement of continued cooperation through 2032 will require a strategy shift for the remaining members of THE Alliance or a potential vessel sharing agreement between THE Alliance and MSC". AlixPartners suggested: “If MSC remains independent, this reshuffling will result in four distinct cooperatives competing for volume on the key head-haul trades, which will act as a brake on rate rises.”

Speaking at the TPM24 transportation summit in Long Beach, California in early March 2024, Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen stated that the Gemini Cooperation would be an exclusive partnership between Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk, effectively closing the door to participation by other carriers.

Also speaking at the event, ONE CEO Jeremy Nixon affirmed that ONE would have better transportation network solutions in 2025 compared to this year.

The CEO of Japan's largest shipping company revealed that discussions about potential new partners were ongoing, with results expected to be announced early next month.

Market speculation has hinted at the possibility of Wan Hai joining THE Alliance, but industry expert Lars Jensen, founder of Vespucci Maritime consultancy, noted in a recent social media post that the Taiwanese carrier would "far from able to plug the gap left over from Hapag’s exit."

Jensen suggested that MSC might operate independently, stating: "They have the scale to do so, and the flexibility associated with not having to compromise with partners is indeed valuable."

AlixPartners, in a new report on maritime transport, observed that "The churn in the ocean carrier alliances that have become a feature of the industry will exert counterpressure on any rate increases."

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