Eimskip buys majority stake in Finland’s Containerships

Eimskip buys majority stake in Finland’s Containerships    Iceland’s Eimskip, part of the Avion Group, has acquired a 65 percent shareholding in Finnish company Containerships, which specializes in door-to-door services within Finland, Russia and Northern Europe. No financial details of the deal with Finnish Container Finance Ltd. were disclosed.
   Finnish Container Finance, together with Eimskip and its just acquired Lithuanian short-sea operator, Kirsiu Linija, will establish a joint venture named the Containerships Group that will be located in Helsinki and operate 11 ships covering the Baltic and North Seas. The joint venture will employ 500 staff and has a projected annual revenue of 200 million euros ($253 million).
   The parties have agreed upon an option enabling Eimskip to increase its shareholding to 100 percent in the future.
   “The joint venture with Containerships supports Eimskip’s future vision of being the market leader in the North Atlantic, offering total services through a network linking key ports in Europe,” said Baldur Gudnason, Eimskip’s chief executive officer.
   “Participating in the joint venture with our 40-year-old family company was not a trivial decision,” said Kimmo Nordstr'm, CEO of Containerships. “Eimskip was, however, able to assure us about the added value of this cooperation.”
   “With Eimskip, Containerships shall be better positioned to grow and to continue developing the door-to-door service both in Europe and in Russia. Containerships will bring its logistics know-how, its excellent personnel and office network as well as the experiences of the Russian trade into the cooperation,” Nordstr'm added.
   Sigurjon Markusson will on Jan. 1 take over from Nordstr'm as Containerships’ CEO, with Nordstr'm becoming chairman of the board.