China's Cosco Group is in talks to purchase rival Hong Kong's Orient Overseas for around $4bn, say sources, amidst the ongoing container shipping industry slump whereby companies are grappling to stay profitable. The deal would see Cosco, which owns a majority stake of Orient, take over the remaining shares from its Chinese partner, China Merchants Holdings (CMI), and will be completed by mid-2017.
China's Cosco Group is in talks to purchase rival Hong Kong's Orient Overseas for around $4bn, say sources, amidst the ongoing container shipping industry slump whereby companies are grappling to stay profitable. In the last two years, smaller liners such as Orient Overseas have been increasingly merging or been taken over by larger conglomerates.