“Takeover with political consequences”: how the purchase of Zim is covered in Germany

The Peg-Lloyd is the fifth largest shipping company in the world, and the Qatar Investment Fund together with the Saudi Investment Fund own nearly a quarter of the ownership of the company. The Qatari fund owns 12.3% of the Peg-Lloyd shares, and the Saudi Public Investment Fund owns 10.2%.

● The sale of Zim for over 4 billion dollars – a blow to shortists and analysts who did not believe in it
● The employees and the regulation: the expected challenges in the sale of the shipping giant Zim
● Tens of millions of dollars to the CEO and the broker: the profiteers from the Zim deal

The maritime transport issue has played a central role in the global campaign to boycott Israel in the past three years, since the October 7 attack by Hamas and the war in Gaza. Maersk faced international criticism for allegedly shipping weapons and defense equipment to Israel. Ports in Italy, Spain, Malta and other European countries refused to allow merchant ships to dock in their territory due to the fact that they were on their way to Israel to unload security equipment. Pro-Palestinian organizations put pressure on companies to distance themselves from Israel even on issues not related to the transport of security equipment, but to what is done beyond the Green Line.

As a result of this pressure, Hagg-Lloyd itself published a statement last summer, in which it distances itself from the Israeli settlements beyond the Green Line. In a statement given to the Shipping News website, the company said that it “is not interested in cooperating with suppliers involved in human rights violations, including illegal displacement and settlements.”

She also told the website that the company “has no customers or suppliers that are on the UN list of companies with ties to Israeli settlements in the occupied territories of the West Bank.” The shipping company Maersk also announced a similar step. This is a list drawn up by the UN body OHCHR (the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights), which includes 158 Israeli businesses “connected” to what is happening beyond the Green Line, including all Israeli banks, Bezeq, food chains, companies Construction, communication and more.

Opportunity for global expansion

The Peg-Lloyd is the fifth largest shipping company in the world, and the purchase of Zim (the tenth largest in the world) will be an opportunity for global expansion, especially in the Mediterranean region and the Middle East, said German reports on the deal. If the purchase goes through, the company will have about 400 ships with a total transport volume of 3 million TEU.

The Israeli Fimi Fund will manage Zim’s Israeli operations, according to reports. Today, the German Peg-Lloyd stock fell by nearly 8% about an hour before the end of trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, against the background of the Israeli company’s purchase announcement.

In the response posted to the website in July 2025, the German company wrote that “if we become aware of or receive indications of the involvement of our suppliers in human rights violations, including illegal evictions or illegal seizure of land, we will take steps quickly to end the relationship and prevent violations.”