When Jacques Saadé moved his family to Marseilles in 1978, he told them they would stay a year while the civil war in Lebanon, their previous home, died down. Thirty years on, Mr Saadé, now 71, and his family remain based in the French port and growth at the shipping business he founded that first year is so rapid he has a new, 50-storey headquarters tower.
Jochen Döhle serves as Managing Partner of Peter Döhle Schiffahrts-KG (GmbH & Co.), Hamburg.
Most German owners, rather than finding customers and organising schedules themselves, charter vessels long-term to Maersk Line, Mediterranean Shipping Company and other container ship operators.
The closest brush with catastrophe came last May, when Hamburg shipowners and HSH Nordbank rescued CSAV, a Chilean container line that had chartered 90 ships from north German owners and almost collapsed.
Jochen Döhle, a partner in Peter Döhle Schiffsfahrt, one of the largest shipowners, rejects complaints the deal propped up an unhealthy company. “Isn’t it a positive sign that shipping has learnt from the mistake of the Lehman collapse?” he asks.
Yet few in northern Germany believe the region can absorb the tens of billions of euros in value being destroyed. Peter Döhle and Claus-Peter Offen, two of the biggest shipowners, last year applied to the federal government for loan guarantees. They withdrew after being told they would be rejected. back
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