The corporate geography of global container terminal operators

Abstract

The terminal and stevedoring industry has expanded substantially in recent years with the emergence of global container terminal operators controlling large multinational portfolios of terminal assets. This paper deals with the emerging corporate geography in the container terminal industry with issues related to the similarities or differences among terminal locations, the processes leading to the expansion of these holdings and the interactions they maintain as nodes within the global freight distribution system. It will be demonstrated that terminal operators show varying degrees of involvement in the main cargo handling markets around the world and that business cycles and a changing world economic geography can alter the geographical orientation of operators’ investment strategies. We unravel the corporate geography of leading firms such as Hutchison Port Holdings, Port of Singapore Authority, DP World, and APM Terminals, but also operators that are more regionally focused, such as Ports America, Eurogate, SSA Marine, and ICTSI.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Dr Daniel Olivier of Transport Canada for his extensive and constructive comments on earlier versions of this paper.