Agility’s foray into the fray provides the Swiss company with an alternative to DSV’s offer
Kuwait-based Agility Group is talking to Panalpina over a tie-up that complicates Danish rival DSV’s US$ 4bn bid for the Swiss logistics group that is being fought by the Basel-based company’s biggest shareholder.
Panalpina and Agility affirmed that they were discussing how the two companies’ logistics operations could work together. Agility, with 22,000 employees and US$ 4.6bn in annual revenue, has been expanding globally under Managing Director Tarek Sultan.
Panalpina added that it was still reviewing the DSV proposal ‘according to its fiduciary duties’.
The entry of Agility into the fray provides the Swiss company with an alternative to DSV’s offer.
The Ernst Goehner Foundation, which owns 46% of Panalpina, is the largest shareholder in the company.
‘Panalpina is in discussions with Agility Group on potential strategic opportunities with regard to their respective logistics businesses’, Panalpina’s Board of Directors said in a statement. ‘The discussions between the two companies are at a preliminary stage,’ the statement continued.
A rival proposal could force DSV Chief Executive Jens Bjorn Andersen to sweeten his cash-and-shares offer for Panalpina. Andersen, who said last week he remains in pursuit of a deal, has faced hurdles in Switzerland as he seeks to grow DSV’s footprint, having failed last year in his US$ 1.55bn bid for Swiss freight forwarder CEVA Logistics.
