Shipping group Maersk continues shopping spree after strong earnings By Reuters

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) -Maersk announced the acquisition of two e-commerce companies on Friday as the world’s biggest container shipping line boosts its bet on land-based services.

Maersk handles one in five containers shipped worldwide but is looking to transform into an integrated logistics company to gain more work from existing clients such as Puma and Walmart (NYSE:).

It bought Visible Supply Chain Management and B2C Europe, both specialised in e-commerce, for a combined enterprise value of $924 million, Maersk said.

It also confirmed a 60% jump in second-quarter revenue and a more than tripling of its quarterly core profit announced in a preliminary trading statement earlier this week, when it raised its 2021 profit outlook.

The pandemic has prompted shortages of container ships and logjams at ports that has sent freight rates to record levels.

“The results benefited both from the exceptional circumstances in Ocean, where congestion and bottlenecks continued to drive up rates, and from solid progress in executing on our strategic transformation,” CEO Soren Skou said.

“The outlook for the third quarter is strong and we expect that the current momentum in Ocean will continue into the fourth quarter,” he said.