Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) has sold APL Logistics (APLL) to Kintetsu World Express (KWE) for $1.2 billion in a stunning deal that gives the Singapore-listed group a net gain of more than $900 million.
The KWE Group considers the establishment of a management base that can compete on a par with European and U.S. competitors in the global market to be one of the Group’s management priorities. In its Medium-Term Management Plan, released in May 2013, the entire Group is engaging in these measures.
APLL is a logistics company with strengths in logistics services and various high-value-added services for companies in the automobile industry and retail industry, among others, and it is expanding its business globally, with a focus on North America and Asia. By welcoming APLL into the KWE Group, we can expect to complement the KWE Group’s freight forwarding services in terms of both commodities handled and regions for expansion, and we will be able to combine the logistics services and various high-value-added services that are the strengths of APLL with the air and sea freight forwarding services that the KWE Group is expanding globally, and these synergies will, in turn, make it possible to create new value and provide a broad range of optimized logistics services to customers.
The share purchase does not affect the consolidated results of the KWE Group for the period ended March 2015. We will make another announcement with respect to the effects on forecasts of future results as soon as the details have been finalized.
Going forward, the KWE Group will continue to push ahead with efforts to realize the establishment of a management base that can compete on a par with European and U.S. competitors in the global market by quickly manifesting the synergies created by bringing APLL into the Group.