Maersk plans to expand fleet as CEO sees new era for shipping

(Bloomberg) -- A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S plans to expand its container fleet as Chief Executive Officer Vincent Clerc said the Covid pandemic has fundamentally changed the economics of shipping, creating a more volatile but potentially more profitable market.

The more bullish view of Maersk’s core Ocean business marks a re-calibration of its decade-old integrator strategy, which sought in part to reduce the company’s exposure to volatile freight markets by diversifying into logistics. Clerc said Maersk now needs to embrace those swings and give its shipping business more room to grow, a change that will require additional capacity.

“Since Covid, the way shipping is priced has fundamentally changed,” Clerc said at a press briefing in Copenhagen on Wednesday. “There’s a natural floor to the price. You can make a lot more than you could before.”


Before the pandemic, the company expected shipping to remain a difficult business and sought to limit its relative exposure while maintaining enough scale to compete. Along the way, Maersk, for decades the world’s largest container carrier, lost the top spot to Mediterranean Shipping Co. in 2022 as its Swiss rival aggressively expanded its fleet and capitalized on soaring freight rates and scarce capacity during the pandemic.

Clerc now sees a better long-term outlook, even if earnings remain bumpy. Demand has proved more resilient than expected, fueled in part by the global push toward electrification and growing shipments of products including batteries, electric vehicles and equipment for data centers. That strength is already boosting Maersk’s results. The company raised its 2026 earnings guidance in August for the second time in seven weeks, helped by higher freight rates and stronger-than-expected demand.

At the same time, years of under-investment in ports and inland infrastructure have created bottlenecks that Clerc expects will contribute to more frequent spikes in freight rates. Unlike ships, which can be added relatively quickly, expanding terminals, railways and other landside infrastructure can take years. The practical consequence for Maersk is straightforward, he said.

“We’re gonna need more ships,” Clerc said, declining to give a number.

That comes even as the container industry faces a wave of new vessel deliveries, fueling concerns about overcapacity and the prospect of lower freight rates. Clerc acknowledged that risk, saying “there are too many ships” and that the industry’s order book is too large, but argued that structural bottlenecks elsewhere in the supply chain have changed the equation.

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That means the shipping market has shifted from one characterized by volatility and low average freight rates to “something that is even more volatile, but higher average,” Clerc said. “And we’ve had to make peace with it.”

Those changes mean freight markets will continue to have “a very, very strong bearing” on Maersk’s share price, Clerc said. “And I don’t think this is going to change any time soon.”