French shipping company CMA CGM took Ceva from the Danish company DSV, which is now bidding for Panalpina, which is negotiating with Agility.

Faced with the ongoing acquisitions in early 2019, Maersk CEO Soren Skou said that throughout, Maersk was investing more in logistics business in its own way.

Although Maersk sees its future as a logistics company rather than a container transport company, SorenSkou will not publicize it, at least not in the short term.

As a result, Maersk seems to be pulling out of the acquisition battle launched in recent months, allowing DSV to compete first with CMA CGM and then with Agility.

With the divestiture of Maersk's oil business and the merger of Hamburg and South America, the next major step is to achieve growth in logistics. The goal is to provide services from product transportation to final destination throughout the industry chain.

However, with this ambitious goal, Maersk plans to lead the transition by merging Maersk Line with Damco, a logistics company, so that customers should be able to buy more transport services from Maersk, not just container cargo. Maersk is planning to take a bigger share of the global logistics business, competing with DSV, Panalpina and even Kuehne+Nagel.

Soren Skou argues that this was Maersk's bet on transportation and logistics two and a half years ago, which later prompted others to move in the same direction: "Some companies are trying to replicate the strategy of investing in logistics."

Asked if a larger acquisition was needed to match the current logistics development, Skou said, "I don't think so. In any case, not in the short term. We are currently busy with internal construction, and I believe we can organically accomplish most of the work.

Maersk's current level of investment is very low, and the CEO promised the board that it would increase it. The board hopes shareholders who have injected money into Maersk will get more returns. Capital investment is $2.2 billion, or more accurately $1.5 billion, because about $700 million is related to future port concessions.

In Skou's own words, $3.8 billion in business performance in 2018 was "disappointing". In addition, the revenue from the sale of Maersk Drilling Company has been able to reduce debt and provide extraordinary returns to shareholders, thus preventing the acquisition of logistics companies.

The current drama of acquisition negotiations among DSV, Panalpina and Agilety highlights the tight market for acquisitions by logistics companies. At the same time, the integration of logistics industry will only become more tense. Last week, DSV increased its bid for Pan-Albana, and analysts said the company was ready to raise its bid further.

Two years ago, UTi was acquired by DSV, which only promised that the company intended to make another large-scale acquisition. As a result, Ceva Logistics and the latest offer for Panalpina of DKK 26 billion were missed in late 2018, only a few weeks.

At present, DSV has offered Pan-Albana a a new offer of DEK 28 billion, which has been supported by several shareholders. Therefore, they are not satisfied that ErnstG? Hner Fund, the major shareholder, has rejected its first offer and has so far considered that it will not be sold to DSV. Recently, Panalpina's management revealed that it was negotiating a cooperation agreement with Agility.