The supervisory board of Germany’s Deutsche Bahn AG (DB) on Wednesday approved the sale of forwarder Schenker to Danish logistics group DSV.
The combined companies will have revenue of $43.5 billion, ranking ahead of current leading global forwarder Kuehne+Nagel of Switzerland, at $28.11 billion. The joint workforce will total around 147,000 employees at 1,850 locations in more than 130 countries.
Also on Wednesday, the German government granted its approval of the sale, which is expected to be completed in 2025 pending regulatory approvals, DB said in a release.
Deutsche Bahn had agreed to the sale in September as it refocuses on its core domestic passenger rail business and pays down some $33.25 billion in debt.
The combined logistics networks will have annual volume of 4.3 million twenty-foot equivalent units, 2.64 million tons of airfreight and 1.88 million square feet of warehouse space in more than 60 countries. DSV has said it plans to invest around $1.1 billion in Schenker, founded in Vienna in 1872.
Schenker is the latest acquisition by DSV (DSV.CO). Others have included UTi Worldwide of the U.S., Switzerland-based Panalpina and Kuwaiti Global Integrated Logistics. The Danish company won out over a bid by a private investor consortium led by CVC Capital Partners of New York.
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