Neptune Orient Lines (NOL) has admitted for the first time that it is in preliminary talks that could end up with it being sold — either to CMA CGM or AP Moller-Maersk.

Some 18 years after NOL’s move to become a big boy in the box trades with the $825m acquisition of US carrier APL in 1997, the Singaporean carrier has slid back to the mid-table obscurity from where it came and is at risk of disappearing altogether.

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