Government to Israel in mid-September,” said Peter Sand, chief analyst at rate benchmarking platform Xeneta.
“ I don’ t believe that the agreement is fully done,” Sand told Journal of Commerce.“ Hapag-Lloyd would like to see some traction on the revised offer, but surely patience is required to seal a deal like this as it’ s just a bit more complicated than your standard acquisition.”
Risks for Israel
Further muddying the waters was a formal position paper from Israel’ s Ministry of Finance on Sept. 29 opposing the revised offer for Zim on the grounds that it poses several risks for the country, according to Israeli newspaper Globes. The risks include the presence of“ hostile” Hapag- Lloyd shareholders, with the Qatari government owning a 12.3 % stake in the carrier and Saudi Arabia holding 10.2 %. There are concerns that those holdings could be exploited during political or diplomatic crises.
Zim shareholders voted overwhelmingly to approve the takeover on April 30, but the acquisition has faced opposition from officials, commentators and labor unions in Israel concerned about the loss of what’ s seen as the country’ s national carrier.
Following a series of meetings with Israeli government officials, Hapag-Lloyd agreed to establish Zim as an Israelicontrolled carrier owned by Israeli private equity fund FIMI. The fund would operate 16 vessels from the Zim fleet and offer direct global connections for Israel through a new company called ZIM Israel.
Although a Golden Share of Zim Israel, held through Israel’ s Finance and Transport ministries, would give the
Israeli government the right to veto corporate decisions, the Finance Ministry highlighted the structural dependence of ZIM Israel on Hapag-Lloyd as another risk factor.
Other risks noted in the Finance Ministry’ s position paper, according to the Globes report, included a loss of economies of scale given the split from the rest of the Zim fleet being taken by Hapag-Lloyd. Other concerns were an aging fleet for Zim Israel, a lack of incentive for FIMI given the absence of an equity investment, and overly optimistic assumptions in the business forecast that do not consider shipping price volatility and geopolitical impacts.
“ Surely patience is required to seal a deal like this.”
Still, Alphaliner noted in its September newsletter that efforts by Hapag-Lloyd to push its bid for Zim through appear to be bearing fruit. The analyst pointed to a Calcalist report that said Israel’ s Economy Minister Nir Barkat, previously opposed to the deal, was reconsidering his position.
Barkat reportedly now believes the deal could be to the benefit of the country, with another meeting between Hapag-Lloyd, FIMI and the Economy Ministry convened in the first full week of October.
email: greg. knowler @ spglobal. com
The EU in recent years has become wary of Chinese investment in ports and logistics. Bernd Settnik / picture alliance via Getty Images investment in ports and logistics in the bloc and treats ports as critical infrastructure rather than purely commercial entities. Screening regulations for foreign direct investment have been tightened to limit supply chain and cybersecurity dependencies on non-EU organizations. An EU briefing from December 2023 noted that port investments could be an indirect source of political leverage in that the more a country’ s economy benefited from the presence of Chinese port operators, the more it depended on good relations with China.
Still, China state-owned companies already hold stakes in 20 European ports and inland freight hubs, including the container port of Piraeus in Greece, which is wholly owned by Cosco Shipping.
email: greg. knowler @ spglobal. com www. joc. com November 2, 2026 | Journal of Commerce 25