FT.com
20 Jul 2008
Singapore’s Neptune Orient Lines could face stiff German resistance after it formally submits a preliminary bid to take over the country’s largest container shipping line later Monday.
The Singaporean company, controlled by the state-owned Temasek investment house, is expected to be among a handful of serious bidders for Hapag-Lloyd, the world’s fifth-largest container line.
However, the other all but certain bidder is likely to be a group of Hamburg businessmen backed by the city’s government, one of Germany’s federal states. The group wants to ensure the company’s corporate headquarters are not moved elsewhere and fear Germany’s exporters could receive poorer service in future if the only sizeable German container line disappears.
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