The announcement issued by Hapag-Lloyd, said simply, “The Executive Boards of Hapag-Lloyd AG and of Hamburg Südamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft KG (Hamburg Süd), in agreement with their shareholders, are investigating if, and under what conditions, a merger of both companies would be of interest.”

In other news, Hapag-Lloyd said it was selected by four leading international forwarding companies as their best partner.

Kuehne + Nagel presented Hapag-Lloyd with the Best Carrier Award.

DB Schenker honored Hapag-Lloyd with its Ocean Carrier of the Year award.

Hapag-Lloyd received Hellmann Worldwide Logistics’ Global Carrier Award.

The carrier also came in at the top of Panalpina’s Global Ocean Freight Carrier Survey.