DENMARK’s Maersk Line is fighting to remain the biggest container shipping carrier as a wave of mergers and acquisitions, particularly in Asia, creates new challengers trying to grab a bigger share of a depressed market.Maersk has made no major acquisition for more than a decade, but says it might be open to "the right opportunity", although doubters believe such deals risk accumulating ships without securing enough customers.The unit of oil and shipping group AP Møller-Maersk has a 15% share of the container market. However, it faces Chinese rivals with global ambitions as well as traditional western competitors that are buying assets in Asia.The battle is over global container traffic, especially between Asian ports — a relatively bright spot for an industry suffering its worst downturn since its origins in the 1950s."It’s really tough and everybody in the industry is really suffering, and so have we," says Jakob Stausholm, Maersk Line’s chief strategy and transformation officer a...
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