Maersk CEO wants half its earnings to come from inland logistics

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In what is perhaps the clearest signal that Maersk intends to compete with some of its largest customers – the freight forwarding segment – an interview with The Wall St Journal reports chief executive Soren Skou as saying he wants increased sales from non-ocean activities. To be fair to the company, it is on the face of it a pretty straightforward risk management strategy, given that currently 80% of its revenues are from container shipping. Nevertheless, his words are likely to send a chill don the spine of some freight forwarders: ““We want to do that. We want to run the warehouse, receive the goods, stuff it into containers, ship it to the U.S. and provide a data feed that says the yellow swim trunks are in that box,” Mr. Skou said. “Then we take it out of the containers,” and send the goods by trucks to distribution centres closer to the final delivery point.”