Analysis: can HHLA Hamburg remain a safe port in the Asia-Europe trade storm?

Photo: HHLA/ Thies Raetzke

Hamburg’s main container terminal operator HHLA finds itself at critical juncture in its business life cycle.

A mature business, with 131 years of glorious history, it must now continue to diversify from its core container operations, committing more capital to the intermodal activities that delivered the best performance across the group in 2015.

The container division still generates almost 60% of turnover, but is a drag on performance and relies on throughput at terminals in Hamburg, as the chart below shows.

The unit succumbed to ...