ZIM Integrated Shipping (ZIM)

A Liner That Rents Its Fleet

ZIM Integrated Shipping sells container space on ships it mostly does not own. At 31 December 2025 it operated 128 vessels, 115 container ships and 13 car carriers, and chartered in (rented from shipowners at a daily hire) about 87.5% of them, or 86.4% of capacity. So the thing that breaks in a downturn is the charter bill, not the value of its ships: freight revenue can fall fast while the hire keeps running.

ZIM is being acquired. On 16 February 2026 it signed a merger agreement under which Hapag-Lloyd will buy it for $35.00 a share in cash; shareholders approved the deal on 30 April 2026. At ZIM's second-quarter report (19 August 2026) the deal still awaited regulatory approvals, including the State of Israel's consent under its special "golden share", and was targeted to close in the fourth quarter of 2026. Until then ZIM is a separate company, and the figures here describe its own operating model at the dates shown.

Capacity is counted in TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units, one standard 20-foot box): 708,543 TEU in total operated, with an average vessel of about 6,086 TEU. Of the container ships, 28 run on LNG dual-fuel engines. ZIM is NYSE-listed, reports in dollars and has 120.5 million shares.

What $1,551 per TEU Measures

The FY2025 average freight rate is containerised cargo revenue divided by TEUs carried: a yield per box. Shipowners report something else, time-charter equivalent (TCE), meaning daily earnings per ship after voyage costs. ZIM's 20-F annual report has no TCE because the measure does not fit a line that rents its ships, which is why the TCE guide uses ZIM as the boundary case.

The fair comparison is a container freight index, and the unit needs care. The Drewry World Container Index (WCI) is quoted per 40-foot box (an FEU, which holds two TEU), so the mid-cycle WCI mark used in these guides, $2,200/FEU, is about $1,100/TEU. The Shanghai Container Freight Index (mid-cycle mark 1,500) is an index level with no dollar unit.

ZIM's realised rate sits above that ~$1,100/TEU level, but the two are not like for like. The WCI is a spot rate on eight east-west lanes. ZIM's average blends contract and spot cargo across its own lanes, weighted heavily to the transpacific, and realised freight lags the index as booked cargo sails. The same lag and lane mix mean a Red Sea or other geopolitical spike in the WCI cannot be extrapolated into long-run liner earnings. The mid-cycle marks are for teaching; check current prices when you build your own model.

Renting Swaps Capital for Charter Risk

ZIM can add or shed capacity by chartering ships in or handing them back, but fixed and index-linked hire keeps running through a downturn unless a contract allows an exit. Danaos sits on the other side of that contract: it owns 75 containerships (477,491 TEU) and earned $35,892/day on its container segment in FY2025 by chartering them out to liners. The spot vs time-charter guide sets ZIM's short-charter exposure against that long-charter owner.

Ship supply matters to an operator too, because it shapes both the charter rates ZIM pays and the freight it can charge. BIMCO put the container orderbook, the highest of the major segments, at 37% of the fleet at end Q1 2026, against 11.4% for dry bulk (end 2025) and 22% for crude tankers.

Valuation Framework

Start from the charter liabilities. Almost all of ZIM's gross debt is lease liabilities for chartered ships: about $5.6 billion at 31 December 2025, against $2.8 billion of cash and deposits, which roughly nets to the $2,925 million reported net debt. Broker values of the 16 owned ships are a small part of the picture; the NAV guide explains why fleet valuations apply fully only to owners such as Frontline and Star Bulk. ZIM files no cash breakeven per vessel-day either, and shipowner breakeven maths does not transfer.

The test is whether realised freight covers charter hire, operating costs and debt service at mid-cycle rates rather than spot spikes. Stress it by letting freight fall from $1,551/TEU toward mid-cycle index levels, then check EBITDA margin and charter-hire coverage.

What to Watch and What Can Go Wrong

The core hazard is a mismatch: when most of the fleet is chartered in, falling freight does not cut capacity costs. Leverage makes it worse. The charter bill stays fixed while EBITDA falls, so the filed net-debt-to-adjusted-EBITDA ratio can climb much faster than the values of 16 owned ships would suggest.

• Quarterly revenue per TEU carried, which shows whether lane mix and spot exposure are moving realised freight toward or away from the WCI.
• The chartered-in share. A shift toward ownership makes ship values matter more and raises capex needs.
• Deliveries into a 37% orderbook. When trade growth slows, the extra capacity presses on charter markets and spot freight alike.