Jumbo, SAL form new heavy-lift alliance

Jumbo Shipping, a Dutch maritime heavy lift transport and engineering contractor, and SAL Heavy Lift, a Germany-based breakbulk and project cargo specialist, have launched a joint venture known as the Jumbo-SAL-Alliance.

Combining their fleets and all commercial activities, SAL and Jumbo said they are gearing up to create “a new powerhouse” in the heavy-lift sector.

“Both companies believe that this move propels them to a greater level of geographical outreach and commercial capacity,” the duo said.

The joint venture handles the complete marketing of 30 project cargo vessels with lifting capacities up to 3,000 t SWL, marking it as the largest fleet in the 800+ t sector.

“This joint venture is a big step for both of us. In the past few years, it became increasingly clear that the benefits of collaboration heavily outweigh the traditional way of doing business. Our client base and interests have changed and to remain an effective global player in our field of activity, you always need to adapt and innovate. Not only on a technical level, but also commercially,” Michael Kahn, Managing Director of Jumbo, explained.

The Jumbo-SAL-Alliance will be offering project and semi-liner services, with the goal of creating a complete maritime transport solution for both breakbulk and specialised transportation scopes around the globe.

Jens Baumgarten, Director Chartering at SAL Heavy Lift, said that the collaboration “provides a solid answer to the needs of big contractors and EPCs as well as manufacturers and forwarders”.

“On one side, we can handle regular or spot-market breakbulk cargoes. On the other, we have the experience and the assets to handle very large and long-term scopes, including arranging third-party tonnage or whatever is needed to make good on our ‘one-stop-shop’ promise.”

Jumbo and SAL are said to be highly complementary, both in terms of fleets as well as human resources, both ashore and on board while sharing many of the same values in terms of quality, safety and solutions focus.

According to Martin Harren, Managing Director of SAL and the Harren & Partner Group, the strategic collaboration combines “engineered transport solutions with a significant fleet of heavy lift vessels”.

The joint venture was cleared by the German competition authority earlier this month.

Both SAL and Jumbo continue as independent operators and vessel owners and both remain active brands in the market.

“The Jumbo-SAL-Alliance merges the global chartering and marketing activities of both companies, creating one large, joint sales organisation. Both brands retain their market presence in addition to the new set-up,” Felix Peinemann, VP Sales Shipping at Jumbo, noted.