Ahrenkiel group
The Ahrenkiel Group is a shipping company founded in 1950 and based in Hamburg .
Companies
The main business areas of the Ahrenkiel Group were ship owners and shipping companies as well as logistics and financing. Around 200 people were employed at the Hamburg and Bern locations as well as other offices in Cyprus and Asia. There were also 1,500 seamen on the ships of the fleet. The company operates chartering, crew and technical ship management for its own ships and on behalf of third parties. Ahrenkiel operates the issuance of ship and real estate investments and takes on building supervision for new ships. The logistics department handles the transport of chemicals and wood.
In May 2011, the Ahrenkiel fleet comprised 49 ships with a total carrying capacity of 1.7 million tons and consisted of over 25 container ships , six chemical, eight product, one oil and one gas tankers and eight bulk carriers . The average age of the ships was less than eight years. In March 2014, the shipping company still had 26 ships.
history
In 1950 Christian Friedrich Ahrenkiel founded the shipping company of the same name "Christian F. Ahrenkiel" in Hamburg and bought the then 21-year-old steamer Alpha . Soon afterwards, the shipping company worked with the Mamemic Line and participated in the Hamburg-Chicago line . The first Ahrenkiel newbuilding was the 5200-ton general cargo ship Esperanza , built in 1955 at the Flender shipyard in Lübeck . In 1961, the shipping company began transporting cars by sea with a bulk carrier with removable hanging decks . The two newbuildings Rhein Express and Main Express were the starting point in container shipping in 1971 . In the same year the tank shipping company "Ahrenkiel GmbH" was founded and the first chemical tanker under Ahrenkiel management was put into service. After opening the office in Cyprus in 1974, the shipping company began operating refrigerated vessels in 1977. In 1982 was awarded the Ahrenkiel Liner Service A regular service was added between Japan, Asia and South Africa, the 1992 New Zealand Orient Line has been extended (NZOL). This merged in 1999 with Tasman Asia to the Tasman Orient Line ; Ahrenkiel held shares in the latter until March 2009. Christian F. Ahrenkiel died in 1993, whereupon his son Christian J. Ahrenkiel took over the management of the company, which he has been managing as sole owner and chairman since 1997.
In 2001, the company began the business area of ship financing and the issue of ship investments with the establishment of the 'Fondshaus Hamburg' and the 'Fondshaus Treuhand', from which it separated in October 2015. The group of companies founded Christian J. Ahrenkiel & Co. Holding and Ahrenkiel Consulting Services in Bern in 2006 , from which parts of the fleet are managed, among other things. The following year, the Suisse Outremer Ahrenkiel & Co. was founded , which took over the operation and technical management of part of the fleet.
In the course of the shipping crisis that started in 2008, the company got into severe financial difficulties and was up for sale in August 2013. On April 1, 2014, the MPC Group took over Ahrenkiel together with the Thien & Heyenga shipping company based in Hamburg. The operations of the two companies taken over will be brought together under the new name Ahrenkiel Steamship .
On July 21, 2020, Wilh. Wilhelmsen took a 50 percent stake in Ahrenkiel Steamship.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Overview of the shipping company's fleet ( Memento from December 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Christian Müssgens, Johannes Ritter: Reederei Ahrenkiel is for sale. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , August 22, 2013. On FAZ.net, accessed on October 23, 2019.
- ↑ Thanks to shipping company merger: HSH Nordbank is reducing shipping loans. In: Handelsblatt , April 1, 2014. From Handelsblatt.com, accessed on October 23, 2019.
- ^ Wilhelmsen Ship Management Acquires 50% Stake in Ahrenkiel Steamship. In: marinelink.com. July 21, 2020, accessed on July 22, 2020 .