Fresh from the launch of its new home delivery service, Gebrüder Weiss has announced the acquisition of German maritime and air freight forwarder Ipsen Logistics for an undisclosed sum.
The deal remains subject to regulatory approvals, but should those approvals be given Gebrüder Weiss will have a far more comprehensive coverage following the acquisition. The Austrian company will national offices in Belgium, Poland, and Malaysia, to its extensive range in Europe, Asia, America, and Oceania.
Signed in Bremen on 29 July, Wolfram Senger-Weiss, CEO of Gebrüder Weiss explained that “The planned acquisition is an important step in the development of our Air & Sea division. Gebrüder Weiss and Ipsen Logistics are a good match, not only geographically but also in terms of their understanding of service and culture. Based on this stronger global network, we are now able to offer both Ipsen’s customers and our future employees new development opportunities.”
Ipsen’s national companies in Morocco and Algeria continue to be cooperation partners in the GW network, but remain unaffected by the acquisition; the same applies to Ipsen Industrial Packing in Bremen.
Lothar Thoma, Managing Director of Air & Sea at Gebrüder Weiss said, “The comprehensive takeover of Ipsen Logistics’ business is part of a growth strategy being pursued by Gebrüder Weiss in the Air & Sea segment for several years now. The company only recently expanded its global Air & Sea network to include its own locations in South Korea, New Zealand, and Australia. Expanding our network in Germany and entering the market in Malaysia means that our growth plans have been completed for the time being,”
The 125-year old Ipsen company’s Air & Sea Division employs 500 staff globally including 180 in eight locations around Germany. Aside from its transportation services Ipsen offers a range of other services including, customs clearance, warehousing, packaging, quality inspection or returns management as well as consolidated container services or multimodal pre- and post-carriage concepts to seaports.
