Maersk family fund agrees to buy terminal operator Portek

A.P. Moller Capital has agreed to buy Portek International, a Singapore terminal company, from Japan's Mitsui & Co. The deal was announced on 15 October. The price was not disclosed. Portek holds interests in seven mid-sized multipurpose terminals in Algeria, Gabon, Indonesia, Latvia, Malta and Vietnam. The buyer belongs to the family company that controls Maersk, yet none of the seven terminals will join APM Terminals, Maersk's own port company.

The reason is that the family runs two port businesses. A.P. Moller Holding owns both Maersk and A.P. Moller Capital, so the two are sister companies. APM Terminals sits inside Maersk. Portek will sit inside the fund, which has its own owners and investors. Development lenders such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank are among those investors. The cargo mix is different too.

The two businesses will meet in southern Vietnam. APM Terminals holds a stake in Cai Mep International Terminal. After closing, Portek's interest in Vietnam International Container Terminal (VICT), in Ho Chi Minh City itself, will carry the same family name under a different owner. The name is the same, but the owners are separate.

For a line calling VICT, Béjaïa in Algeria or Valletta in Malta, nothing changes at signing. The fund says it will work with Portek's existing management. It has announced no change to tariffs, berth allocation or systems.

Should a carrier that competes with Maersk expect worse treatment? The structure gives it no reason to. A fund earns on throughput, and throughput comes from every line. Much of Portek's business also sits outside container shipping. Alongside about 700,000 containers a year, the terminals move some 7 million tonnes of bulk and 90,000 vehicles. None of that cargo belongs to any liner network.

So this reading changes only if a commercial tie to APM Terminals or Maersk appears. Nothing announced so far points to one. That is the announcement to watch for.