For the first time in over 100 years, Maersk will recruit its Chief Executive from outside the company. The new head of the giant shipping and oil services company, A.P.Moller-Maersk, will be Nils Smedegaard Andersen, presently the head of the Danish brewer Carlsberg. He replaces Jess Soederberg who is leaving the company two years ahead of schedule.

At the same time there will be a number of retirements from the senior management. The joint CEO of Maersk, Knud E. Stubkjaer will leave in July as will Tommy Thomsen CEO of APM Terminals, the container ports business. Press comment suggests that these two managers both had ambitions to be Group CEO.

Maersk Container shipping is the key business within A.P.Moller-Maersk, accounting for more than two-thirds of the Group’s profits. Maersk is the largest container shipping company in the world with a sizeable and related logistics business to match. Its APM terminals business is around the fourth largest private sector container terminal business in the world.

The Maersk shipping line has had a disappointing two years. The integration of the purchase of P&O Nedlloyd was handled badly, with Maersk spending €2.3billion on the Anglo-Dutch container shipping company, but failing to gain any market-share from the business. In parallel the company announced a loss in 2006, badly affected by falling container rates. These competitiveness problems were compounded by internal issues around Maersk’s IT systems.

The new CEO, Nils Smedegaard Andersen has served on the board of directors of A.P. Moller-Maersk as a non-executive director. His former employer, Carlsberg, however is a very much smaller company with around 20% of the capitalisation of A.P.Moller-Maersk. The challenges ahead for him must not be underestimated.

Source: Transport Intelligence

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