LX Pantos, Japanese Shipping Company ONE, and US Partner to Establish Logistics Joint Venture

LX Pantos announced on the 4th that it has completed the establishment of a joint venture (JV) in the United States called 'Boxlinks' with Ocean Network Express (ONE), the world's 6th largest shipping company. This is the first time a Korean logistics company has established a joint venture with Japan's largest shipping company in the U.S.

ONE is a shipping company launched in 2017 by integrating the container divisions of Japan's three major container shipping companies into a single network, with its headquarters in Singapore. Along with the national shipping company HMM and Taiwan's Yang Ming Marine Transport, it announced the launch of a new shipping alliance called the 'Premier Alliance' in February of this year.

In the joint venture (JV), LX Pantos holds a 51% stake, while ONE holds 49%. Since 2023, the two companies have formed a consensus to target the North American logistics market and have built a close cooperative relationship. After about two years of business preparation, they recently completed the establishment of the JV.

Through the JV Boxlinks, the two companies will make a full-scale entry into the intermodal business in the United States. Intermodal refers to a multimodal transport service combining rail and truck transportation.

The JV will exclusively secure ONE's containers transported inland through U.S. ports and develop rail and truck transportation businesses using empty containers, creating new revenue streams. This business structure is a win-win in terms of improving the efficiency of empty container recovery and generating additional transportation revenue.

The United States, the world's largest consumer market, has a container cargo market centered on import cargo volume. Containers imported through western ports (such as LA) and eastern ports (such as Savannah and New York) move inland, and about half of these containers are returned to the ports as empty containers without finding export cargo.

To promote the business, the JV recently signed direct contracts with the largest U.S. railroads?Union Pacific (UP), Norfolk Southern (NS), and BNSF?to establish rail line services connecting major hubs across the U.S. while securing competitive freight rates.

The growth rate of the U.S. intermodal market is rapid. According to the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA), the North American intermodal market is approximately KRW 79 trillion in size and is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 10.9% until 2030.

Lee Yong-ho, CEO of LX Pantos, stated, "With the establishment of this JV, we have laid the foundation for a new intermodal business in the world's largest market, the United States. We will strengthen our position in the U.S. market by advancing end-to-end services that link international transportation and inland railroads."