Danish regulator gives green light to Norden’s acquisition of Thorco Projects

Danish shipping company Norden has completed the acquisition of Thorco Projects, a business specializing in general cargo segments such as break bulk, steel, and wind energy.

The acquisition was announced last month as Norden is planning to gain access to new customer segments within the general cargo segments. The deal has now been approved by the Danish Competition Authorities.

“We are pleased to close the first acquisition in Norden’s 152-year-old history and welcome our new colleagues, who bring in a wealth of highly-skilled competencies and know-how, enabling us to not only expand our portfolio to all non-containerised cargo types, but also harvest the joint commercial synergies to further grow our businesses to the benefit of our customers,” says Jan Rindbo, CEO at Norden.  

With the integration of the new business, Norden now provides services within specialist general cargo segments such as break bulk, steels and wind energy-related cargoes, where multiple cargo parcels from different customers typically are combined into single shipments, known as parcelling. 

“Today we join Norden, and we are all enthusiastic to be part of a trusted industry-leading organisation, that will enable us to further strengthen our customer offerings,” says Thomas Mikkelsen, Head of Projects & Parcelling at NORDEN – former CEO of Thorco Projects.

“By being part of Norden, we are able to optimise and establish new trading routes, while adding new customer benefits by leveraging NORDEN’s strong reputation and expertise within decarbonisation, intelligent use of data and risk management.”

With the acquisition, Norden is now able to service customers within all non-containerised cargo types in the dry cargo segment, ranging from Handysize to Capesize, including Multipurpose (MPP) vessels. Additionally, Norden is opening a new office in Bremen, bringing the number of global offices up to 14.