JOC Staff | Jan 02, 2013 8:31AM EST
China Merchants has agreed to acquire a 23.5 percent stake in Port de Djibouti SA for $185 million, its second acquisition in as many weeks, as the Hong Kong firm bids to become a major global container terminal operator.
PDSA’s main assets are a 66.7 percent stake in the Doraleh Container Terminal and a multipurpose cargo facility in the Port of Djibouti in the Horn of Africa at the entrance to the Red Sea.
DP World owns the remaining stake in the container terminal, six miles south of the Port of Djibouti, which the Dubai-based firm claims is “the most technologically advanced container terminal in the African continent.”
Earlier, state-owned China Merchants and consortium partners China Shipping Terminal and Cosco Pacific won approval from Taiwan’s investment committee for the $135 million acquisition of a 30 percent stake in a container terminal owned and operated by ocean carrier Yang Ming Marine Transport.
The two deals are expected to be followed by the imminent announcement of an agreement to acquire a 49 percent stake in Terminal Link, the port operating arm of French ocean carrier CMA CGM.
The Terminal Link deal will give China Merchants a foothold in Europe and North America as the company has facilities in Marseilles, Le Havre, Zeebrugge and Houston and Miami.
