Report: Yang Ming Quashes Merger Talks

Yang Ming Taiwanese ocean carrier Yang Ming Marine Transport has dismissed any possibility of a potential merger as the company believes that the industry will start to recover from a downturn triggered by global overcapacity in 2017, Reuters cited the companys chairman Bronson Hsieh as saying. Yang Ming, one of the top ten shipping companies in the world, has never considered merger options and it never will, Hsieh said. He also said that the past decade has shown that smaller industry players do not necessarily have to merge, adding that over the period, smaller shippers were the ones recording highest profit margins. In Japan, the countrys top three carriers have announced the merger of their container shipping operations which would lead to the creation of the sixth largest containership fleet in the world. World Maritime News Staff