Other container shipping firms may join Hanjin Shipping Co Ltd in receivership before the industry emerges from its current shakeout, the vice chairman of world number three player CMA CGM said on Wednesday.
South Korea's Hanjin filed for protection from creditors in late August, stranding $14 billion in cargo and sending shockwaves through global trade networks.
Outlining his predictions for the next three to five years for an industry struggling with overcapacity and sluggish demand, CMA CGM Vice Chairman Rodolphe Saade said consolidation was "the name of the game".
Bringing freight rates down to rock bottom was not the answer, however.
"There will be a price war but we need a 'decent' price war," he said in a presentation at the Danish Maritime Forum in Copenhagen.
The French group was founded in 1978 by Rodolphe Saade's father Jacques.
(Reporting by Nikolaj Skydsgaard Writing by John Stonestreet)