P&O Nedlloyd CEO says IPO is “just one option”
P&O Nedlloyd CEO says IPO is “just one option”
Philip Green, newly appointed chief executive officer of P&O Nedlloyd, said a stock market listing for the Anglo-Dutch company was only one option under review.
Green, who succeeded Robert Woods as head of the company Jan. 1, said other options are either one of the 50-percent shareholders buying out the other, or taking the company private.
The 50-percent owners of P&O Nedlloyd are U.K.-based Peninsular & Oriental Navigation Co. and The Netherlands’ Royal Nedlloyd NV, two companies that are listed on the stock exchange. The P&O group has said it wants to reduce its exposure to the container shipping market. Royal Nedlloyd has said it favors a stock market listing of P&O Nedlloyd, replacing the listing of its own stock.
Green said he plans to work on P&O Nedlloyd’s shareholder issue, and was told before he took his position that it had to be resolved. There is no set timetable to implement a change in the shareholder structure, he said.
P&O Nedlloyd’s renewed interest in a potential initial public offering coincides with both a recovery of the container shipping market and with a plan announced by the German group TUI AG to put one-third of the stock of its wholly owned shipping subsidiary Hapag-Lloyd on the stock market.
Green, a former senior executive with DHL International and Reuters, said P&O Nedlloyd has similarities with his previous organizations. He cited the scale of the business, its global market, and the fact that it is operating in a service industry. P&O Nedlloyd and DHL also have logistics value-added services in common.
Green has embarked on an intensive period of meeting shipping executives and decision-makers both within P&O Nedlloyd and in other companies. Green is aware he is one of the very few non-shipping executives in decades to have been selected to run a major container shipping group. However, he noted he was also an industry outsider when he was appointed at the media group Reuters.