The major shipping company MSC and the City of Hamburg are entering the home straight in their plans for the Hamburg port logistics company HHLA. Once the regular acceptance period for an MSC purchase offer to HHLA shareholders has expired, both partners will have a substantial HHLA majority of well over 80 percent. In return, this means that the remaining HHLA shareholders have less than the so-called blocking minority, which could be used to block important decisions.

The City of Hamburg and the world’s largest liner shipping company want to run HHLA as a joint venture in future, with MSC holding a maximum of 49.9 percent and the city 50.1 percent. Hamburg currently holds around 69 percent of HHLA. In order for the plan to be realized, MSC had to convince HHLA shareholders to sell their shares to the shipping company. During the deadline that expired on Tuesday night, MSC was tendered at least 3.9 percent of HHLA shares (as of Monday afternoon).

More recent information was not available on Tuesday. According to an MSC spokesperson upon request, “it usually takes two to three banking days for the Central Settlement Agent to determine the exact number of shares tendered as part of the offer and for the result to be published”. Only then does the statutory “further acceptance period” of two weeks begin, within which HHLA shareholders can make up for a decision to sell. The MSC offer of October 23 stated that this period is expected to begin on November 24 and end on December 7 at midnight.

According to its own information, the world’s largest liner shipping company already has an HHLA share of just under ten percent. According to this information, the City of Hamburg and MSC thus hold a good 63.3 million HHLA shares in total. “This corresponds to a total of around 84.21 percent of the company’s share capital and voting rights as of the reporting date,” according to the most recent announcement on Monday. In the first half of November, MSC Germany CEO Nils Kahn had still spoken of 75 percent held jointly by the city and his company.
An important threshold for takeover bids is 90 percent. This threshold is decisive for the remaining shareholders to be forced to transfer their shares against their will – the technical term for this is squeeze-out.
Source: dpa-AFX