Maersk resumes liquidation of its Russian Container Shipping subsidiary

COPENHAGEN : Maersk has resumed the process of liquating its Russian subsidiary, Maersk LLC (St. Petersburg), as part of its final steps of exiting the country. According to a notice published Friday by the Russian Unified State Register of Legal Entities (Fedresurs), A.P. Moller-Maersk made the decision to liquidate Maersk LLC in April.

Maersk had initially started liquidating its Russian container shipping subsidiary in 2022, with all employees dismissed through mutual agreement in February 2023. However, the liquidation process was later canceled in June 2023, according to local media reports.

In its regulatory filings for last year, Maersk LLC stated that it did not receive any revenue for the period, as there were no activities due to being in liquidation.

Maersk formally ceased Russian-related operations in 2022 and went on to divest its key assets in the country. These include selling two key logistics sites – an inland container depot in Novorossiysk and refrigerated containers warehouse in St. Petersburg.

Among the last assets in Russia were four tugboats under Maersk’s towage division Svitzer, which a Russian court had seized last year following a dispute with Svitzer’s customer Sakhalin Energy. However, early this year, Svitzer announced that it had managed to sell the four tugboats to a Chinese buyer.