Group Functions at the Maersk Group

In 2014, seven years after he was appointed CEO of the Danish shipping and oil conglomerate A.P. Møller Maersk (the Maersk Group), Nils Andersen was reexamining the size and role of corporate headquarters in the company he had reshaped as a "premium conglomerate." During his tenure, Andersen had divided what had previously been operated as almost a single entity into separate lines of business, each accountable for its own performance and expected to deal at arms-length with its "sister" businesses, while substantially reducing the size and functions of the corporate headquarters. But as the business units (BUs) and corporate headquarters adjusted to their new roles, new issues surfaced.