State-owned Dubai Ports World has expressed interest in bidding for a 49.9 percent stake in Hamburg port operator HHLA, DP World's CEO said on Friday.
"Yes. Because the port is strategic in Europe," DP World Chief Executive Mohammed Sharaf told Reuters, when asked whether his company had expressed interest to invest in the German port operator. More than 100 parties have shown interest in acquiring the minority stake from the German city state of Hamburg, according to a local politician quoted by a newspaper last month.
DP World, the world's third largest container port operator, in February paid $6.8 billion for British port operator P&0. Dubai, a trading and commercial hub in the world's largest energy-exporting region, has led a Gulf Arab surge in foreign acquisitions this year, spending $12.5 billion on real estate and stakes in companies.
The Hamburg port, the world's eighth largest, is operated by Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA). It is benefiting from booming freight transport with Asia and eastern Europe. HHLA posted operating profit of 110 million euros ($146.2 million) in 2005, up 60 percent from a year earlier. Sales rose 16 percent to 833 million euros last year.
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