ACL WITHDRAWS SHARES FROM OSLO STOCK EXCHANGE

ACL WITHDRAWS SHARES FROM OSLO STOCK EXCHANGE    Atlantic Container Line will no longer have its shares listed on the Oslo stock exchange, following a resolution adopted by the company’s board of directors.
   The last date of listing and trading the ACL share over the stock exchange will be March 1.
   Olav Rakkenes, chief executive officer of ACL, said that majority shareholder Grimaldi is seeking to buy the remaining shares in the company.
   Naples-based Grimaldi currently has 92.2 percent of the company’s 13 million shares, and intends to buy the outstanding one million shares.
   “Their aim is to control the company 100 percent,” Rakkenes said.
   As long as there are still minority stockholders, ACL will continue to publish financial information in the normal way.
   Rakkenes said that he saw no impact on ACL as a business from the decision to de-list, other than having fewer shareholder filing requirements.
   In a separate development, Rakkenes commented that there is a need for a rationalization of capacity in the North Atlantic liner trade.
   “All lines are struggling,” he said. He suggested that pure container carriers are suffering the most.
   Rakkenes said that he was not currently engaged in discussions with other carriers on capacity cutbacks, but warned that there are “at least two loops too many” in the trade now. “It makes sense a lot of sense to drop some loops.”
   During 2001, cargo volumes decreased in the transatlantic trade in both directions, while ocean carriers added some capacity.