Management Update: Slashing ships.

A number of Asian carriers have significantly trimmed their container ship fleets over the last 15 months as they sought to reduce exposure to the fragile liner shipping markets. According to analysts at the Paris-based think tank Alphaliner, the seven major Asian operators surveyed have disposed of 282,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEUs) during the period, representing 16 percent of their combined fleet. This includes 155,000 TEU that these operators sent to scrap and a further 127,000 TEU that were sold in the secondhand market and in financial engineering deals. The Asian carriers were not the only operators to be trimming their fleet, said analysts. Among the other main carriers, CMA CGM, MSC and Maersk had also taken steps to dispose of parts of their fleets.