According to Israeli media, the Hamburg-based shipping company Hapag-Lloyd has submitted a bid for the takeover of Zim. The works council reacted with serious concerns.
The German liner shipping company Hapag-Lloyd has submitted a bid to take over the Israeli company Zim. Other major players also seem to be interested in the shipping company.
According to Israeli media reports, the bid is currently at an early stage and there are no concrete negotiations yet. The amount of the bid is not known. However, there is already resistance at Zim to a possible takeover by Hapag-Lloyd. When asked by HANSA, the Hamburg-based company itself stated that it did not wish to comment on market rumors.
After months of speculation about a sale of the shipping company, the Mediterranean Shipping Company and Maersk are also being discussed as interested parties, but no statements have been made. Eli Glickman, CEO of Zim, has also submitted a bid of 2.4 billion dollars together with businessman Rami Ungar. The market value of Zim is currently quoted at $2.1 billion – but whether Glickman can keep up with the bids of the shipping companies remains questionable. In August, it was announced that the CEO wanted to delist the company from the stock exchange.
Resistance from the works council
As far as a takeover by Hapag-Lloyd is concerned, there is already resistance from the Zim works council. As the largest shareholders in the German shipping company are Qatar Holding (12.3%) and the Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF (10.2%), Israel would be in a critical position in the event of war. “98% of Israeli trade is carried by sea,” the works council told the Globes newspaper. “If Zim is in Qatari-Saudi hands, we will be cut off from the sea in the next war. We don’t have an open land border. The sea is our lifeline.” The government is therefore urged to block a takeover by Hapag-Lloyd.
With a capacity of around 2.4 million TEU and a market share of 7.2%, Hapag-Lloyd is the world’s number five liner shipping company. Zim is in tenth place with around 700,000 TEU and 2.1%, just behind the Taiwanese shipping company Yang Ming. In the third quarter of 2025, Zim generated a net profit of around $123 million – a sharp decline compared to the $1.1 billion in the same period of the previous year.
