Fitch Ratings considers next to be exhausted the phase of consolidation in the field of the containerized marine transport



According to the agency of London rating Fitch Ratings, the phase of consolidation in the field of the containerized marine transport is next to be exhausted and, in the current moment of slow down of the increase of world-wide the commercial exchanges and of change determined from the digital distruption, the field is more and more concentrating instead on a vertical integration joining in various fields of the logistics. A strategy, this last one - the agency has emphasized - demonstrated for example from the recent acquisition of CEVA, one of the main companies of logistics of the world, by the French shipowning group CMA CGM and from the transformation in society of logistics of the integrated container of shipowning group Danish A.P. Møller-Mærsk put into effect with the objective to balance the revenues generated from the activity of containerized marine transport and the revenues produced from other asset, in particular from those logistic and terminalistiche ones and the services. Strategies of vertical integration - it has observed Fitch Ratings - that they are pursued also by other companies between which the Hapag-Lloyd German and Chinese COSCO Shipping.

Fitch Ratings has specified that, with the first six companies of navigation of this field that they represent beyond 70% of the ability to transport of the entire market, it is therefore improbable that new happen acquisitions of great capacity, even if does not have to be underrated - it has specified the agency - the possibility that an ulterior consolidation happens through the failure of smaller companies of navigation and financially more weak people or through the acquisition of this type of companies by structured society of navigation more.

For Fitch Ratings, the thrust to the consolidation of the section of the containerized marine transport is destined to be exhausted mainly because the agency considers that an ulterior efficientamento of the costs is difficultly obtainable through ulterior increases of scale. Moreover Fitch Ratings considers that to obtain from the competent authorities the authorization to new concentrations he could turn out difficult for the always increasing worries of the impact of such operations on the competition and also considers that the financing of important acquisitions demands the ability to propose a process of reduction of the indebtedness that difficultly would be accepted in the current conditions of market.

Fitch Ratings, moreover, has evidenced that the passage from the consolidation to the vertical integration offers to the containerized companies of navigation the opportunity to generate stabler cash flows and than to reduce their exposure regarding marine hires who are extremely birds.

The London agency has emphasized but also the difficulty that the navigation companies can have in joining in a market of the logistics that highly competitive and is fragmented and that it includes shippers, digital enterprises of logistics, starts-up and now also navigation companies. Therefore - according to Fitch Ratings - because these strategies have happened in the long term are necessary a speed of adaptation and an ability to create agile and flexible activities, also in consideration of the fact that, even if pushed out from the increase of the e-commerce, the rates of growth of the logistics are diminished and the margins in the field of shipments they are filed by the digital competition.