The two largest shipping companies in the world – MSC and Maersk – announced yesterday the mutual termination of the shipping alliance 2mstarting from January 2025. Let’s recall that Brit 2m is an agreement to share container capacity on the ships of the two companies. The agreement was signed in 2015 with the intention of guaranteeing customers a competitive and efficient activity in terms of costs in trade between Asia and Europe, the trans-Atlantic and the trans-Pacific. The agreement was signed for a period of at least 10 years with the ability to withdraw from the agreement with a two-year notice.
In a joint statement, Vincent Clarke, the incoming CEO of AP Muller Maersk Group, and Soren Toft, CEO of MSCbecause “friendships MSC and Maersk acknowledge that a lot has changed since the two companies signed a 10-year agreement in 2015. Termination of alliance 2m Paving the way for both companies to continue to realize their individual strategies.’
“We greatly value the partnership and look forward to continue our strong cooperation in the remaining time until the end of the alliance period. We remain committed to performing the services promised to customers MSC ומארסק״.
We note that the two shipping companies jointly own a fleet of ships with a capacity of over 4 million not – Larger by a considerable margin than other shipping companies.
Lars Jensen, CEO of the maritime consultancy Vespucci and a former employee of the Maersk Group, claimed in a LinkedIn post that the news coming from the shipping giants is just the beginning of what is to be a “reshaping of the alliance groups in trade between the East and the West.”
Jensen wrote that “this will change the competitive dynamics in the central trade on the Eastern and Western routes for all major shipping companies, and it is clear that all companies will closely examine what threats and opportunities this will bring to light.” He added “this is the first domino to fall among many dominoes that will fall over the next few years.”