Germany’s Rickmers Holding and ER Capital Holding are weighing the merger of their ship-management units into a global joint venture with around 220 vessels.

“The aim is to pool strengths in a highly competitive market to further promote expansion of the ship-management business and increase the new company’s capabilities,” the two Hamburg-based firms said in a joint statement.

The companies, which are owned by the Rickmers brothers, said the review process will take “several weeks.”

The merger of the two ship management units — Rickmers Maritime Services and ER Schiffahrt — would create one of the world’s leading container ship managers with a fleet of 165 vessels with a combined capacity of 875,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units.

Bulk carriers make up the majority of the remaining 55 vessels managed by the two companies.

Rickmers Holding said a merger would not have any impact on the terms of its corporate bond, which is listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange.

Rickmers grew the number of ships under its management to 130 at the end of 2015 from 110 a year earlier. It is a major shareholder in Singapore-based Rickmers Maritime Trust, which owns 16 ships on charter to leading ocean carriers, and its Rickmers-Linie unit operates a scheduled breakbulk, heavy lift and project cargo liner service.

The group, which is tipped to list its shares in the U.S., posted a 135.5 million euro ($153 million) net loss in 2015 after impairments, compared with a 2.1 million euro net profit in 2014.

ER Capital is the financial holding company for several maritime service providers and investment companies, including Nordcapital. 

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