Hapag-Lloyd and United Arab Shipping Company (UASC) finalized their merger today, creating the fifth-largest shipping company in the world with 230 vessels and a shared fleet capacity of approximately 1.6 million TEUHapag-Lloyd will remain a publicly traded company registered in Germany with its headquarters in Hamburg.118 Hapag-Lloyd services will be consolidated with 45 services in UASC’s network, in a process that will start in roughly eight weeks and will take until the end of the third quarter.UASC’s 58 vessels will be integrated into the fleet of Hapag-Lloyd. The combined fleet will then include a total of 230 vessels and be one of the youngest in the industry, with an average ship age of only 7.2 years. The average size of the vessels in Hapag-Lloyd’s new fleet will be some 6,840 TEU/vessel, approximately 30 percent larger than the average of the top 15 in the industry (5,280 TEU/vessel).