China’s Cosco Shipping Holdings Co. is starting the process of selling its large container terminal in Long Beach, Calif., a major gateway for U.S. trade that is expected to bring bids of more than $1 billion from some of the world’s biggest port operators, people involved in the matter said.
The sale is part of an agreement with U.S. regulators that gave Cosco the green light to buy Hong Kong-based container shipping line Orient Overseas International Ltd. for $6.3 billion in July.
Orient Overseas operates the Long Beach Container Terminal under a long-term concession. Cosco agreed earlier this year with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to place it into a U.S-run trust and sell it within a year to allay national security concerns over a Chinese state entity running a major U.S. gateway.
Cfius has scuttled several international transactions in the past couple of years including Broadcom Ltd.’s $117 billion takeover of chip rival Qualcomm Inc. and the sale of MoneyGram International Inc. to Chinese billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Financial Services Group.
“Sale advisers are being hired and the expectation is for bids of more than $1 billion from global port operators and maybe pension funds and private equity,” a person directly involved in the matter said. “The sale is being run by OOIL and should be completed by June at the latest.”
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