Germany blocks Cosco's bid for 80% of Hamburg logistics firm Zippel on security grounds
The German Economy Ministry has blocked Chinese state-owned shipper Cosco's planned purchase of an 80% stake in Hamburg-based Zippel, citing threats to supply-chain resilience. The ministry said the deal "would have deepened dependencies" and that Germany welcomes foreign investment but will prohibit deals that threaten security. Zippel, with around 350 employees, says operations will continue unchanged.
Bottom line — Cosco must now await Berlin's final word on what it does next, after a deal cleared by antitrust authorities in February was stopped on security grounds.
Go deeper 8
-
Germany's antitrust authority cleared the deal in February, saying national security considerations fell outside its scope, so the block came through a separate foreign-investment review.
-
According to Handelsblatt, a government memo marked "for official use only" warned that strategic dependencies could be used as leverage in political upheavals.
-
Reuters reported the Handelsblatt story on 29 September, before the Economy Ministry confirmed the decision on Wednesday.
-
Zippel managing director Axel Plass said in a June interview with Deutsche Verkehrs-Zeitung that the ministry's review examined the firm's software and whether it handled sensitive data.
-
Plass argued the company's IT architecture was German and European and that, with a market share of around 1.5%, Zippel was "not worth the public uproar."
-
Reuters reports the government reviews around 300 acquisitions a year and has prohibited eight in total.
-
Cosco already holds a minority stake of below 25% in Hamburg's Tollerort container terminal, approved in 2023 after a lengthy dispute, with criticism led by the then Green-led Economy Ministry.
-
A Cosco spokesperson told Reuters the company could not comment until it received a final decision from Berlin, and it did not respond to Daily Sabah's request for comment.