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| K+N eyes up Schenker |
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| Written by Vascoingles | |
| Saturday, 18 April 2009 | |
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K+N's Kuehne eyes up acquisition of DB Schenker Land Transport business Klaus-Michael Kuehne, chairman of Swiss global forwarding company Kuehne + Nagel, has given an insightful interview in the German business weekly WirtschaftsWoche. In a wide-ranging discussion, he was asked to comment on the future of German rail and logistics group Deutsche Bahn, now that company's former Chief Executive, Helmut Mehdorn, has been replaced. Kuehne advised the new boss, Rüdiger Grube, to return Deutsche Bahn's focus to its core rail activities. That comes after years of diversification which has led DB into a range of supply chain activities and a corporate strategy which included the acquisition of major international forwarders Schenker and Bax Global. According to Kuehne, DB should consequently consider selling its logistics business and investing the proceeds in developing the group's rail operations. Kuehne went on to assert that his company would be interested in the acquisition of DB Schenker's Land Transport business, which he described as a 'pearl', if it was put up for sale. However, he also went on to say that he did not think that division would be sold separately from the rest of DB Schenker's logistics division. It seems that he is not interested in buying the latter's air and sea forwarding operations. When questioned over whether his company would be able to afford such a major purchase, given the state of the global market, Kuehne said that things were not as bad as they were sometimes made out. That was despite the 5-8% of workforce redundancies which his company has been forced to make due to the reduction in freight volumes. He also went on to make the point that K+N would benefit from gaining market share in the present environment, as its strong business and financial position would enable it to outstay weaker competitors. As regards to the economic crisis, Kuehne raised some hopes of a recovery. He stated that K+N's Sea Freight business had experienced a slight revival in recent weeks. However, he said there were no guarantees that would continue. Kuehne has always been an outspoken commentator on the freight industry. His comments on the future of DB Schenker are designed to progress the political debate over the future of Deutsche Bahn now that Mehdorn, who was single-handedly responsible for driving the company's strategy, has gone. More generally, the interview sends the message that if there are to be clear winners and losers from the economic crisis, Kuehne intends his company to be one of the former. Source Transport Intelligence |
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| Last Updated ( Saturday, 18 April 2009 ) |
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