About us
Buss Ports unites all port activities of the Buss Group, which was founded in 1920. It all began more than 100 years ago with the founding of Gerd Buss Stauerei. The company quickly made a name for itself with the loading and unloading of ships and within a few years became one of the largest stevedoring companies in the Hanseatic city of Hamburg. At its peak, Buss operated four transhipment terminals here.
Today, Buss Ports is a reliable partner offering comprehensive solutions for the energy sector and industry. The portfolio includes a broad spectrum ranging from classic port logistics and stevedoring to customised project logistics. Buss Ports operates four terminals either independently or in partnerships. There are also other service companies.
In the offshore wind logistics sector, Buss Ports has been successfully operating the Buss Terminal Eemshaven in the Netherlands since 2011. Buss Ports has established itself as the first port of call in the market for harbour logistics for large offshore wind projects. The team of logistics experts and engineers at Buss Offshore Solutions in Hamburg creates customised and individual logistics solutions for the handling, transport, storage and pre-installation of offshore wind components.
AT A GLANCE
Buss Ports in Figures
years of Buss
The Buss Group was founded in Hamburg in 1920.
Terminals
We operate terminals independently or in partnerships in Stade, Sassnitz and Eemshaven as well as a factory port in Duisburg.
Employees
We offer our services with more than 250 employees in Germany and the Netherlands.
Nationalities
Colleagues from 30 countries of origin work successfully together with us.
Management
The Management of Buss Ports
Management
Since spring 2024, Buss Ports is being jointly managed by Claas Pinkenburg as CEO and Morten Lund as COO. Both have many years of experience in the strategic development and management of companies in the maritime sector.
Together with the experienced teams at the port locations as well as the headquarters in Hamburg, the management's focus is on developing customised solutions for customers' logistics requirements: Partnership-based, customised, based on a level playing field.
Management
Since spring 2024, Buss Ports is being jointly managed by Claas Pinkenburg as CEO and Morten Lund as COO. Both have many years of experience in the strategic development and management of companies in the maritime sector.
Together with the experienced teams at the port locations as well as the headquarters in Hamburg, the management's focus is on developing customised solutions for customers' logistics requirements: Partnership-based, customised, based on a level playing field.
COMPANY TRADITION
More than 100 years of Buss Group
Buss Port Services is part of Buss Group, a corporate group originally founded in Hamburg in 1920. Currently, the company counts around 500 employees. For many decades, Buss was primarily a port company. Today, the owner-managed group of companies has a broad base in the business areas of port logistics, logistics real estate, shipping, investments and wind energy.
Port Logistics
The origins of Buss Group go back to the so called Gerd Buss Stauerei, which was founded in the Port of Hamburg in 1920. The company quickly made a name for itself with the loading and unloading of ships and soon became one of the largest stevedoring companies in Hamburg. At its peak, Buss operated four transhipment terminals in the Hanseatic city. However, the rapid containerisation of general cargo transport since the 1960s made the Buss Group's core business, which was conventional cargo handling, increasingly superfluous.
Today, Buss offers maritime plant logistics services and still provides classic stevedoring services. Outside of Hamburg, Buss operates terminals in Sassnitz/Mukran, Stade, in Eemshaven in the Netherlands and a factory port in Duisburg, either alone or in partnerships. The port activities of the Buss Group are summarized under the name "Buss Ports".
Logistics Real Estate
A milestone in the company's history was the entry into the logistics and logistics real estate business in the 1990s. Today, with the name Ixocon, this area is an important pillar of the Buss Group. The business model is based on finding suitable sites for logistics property development and tenants. After the successful completion of the logistics centres, they are usually sold to institutional investors, such as pension funds. Buss also holds some logistics properties in its own portfolio. Since the division was founded in 1995, Ixocon has completed 54 projects with more than 800,000 m² of storage space and an investment volume of 613 million euros. The geographical focus initially lied on Hamburg. Today, Ixocon develops logistics properties all over Germany. An integrated project for Amazon was completed in 2019, which is the largest logistics centre implemented by Ixocon, covering an area of 150,000 square metres. For Amazon this is the most modern logistics centre in Europe.
Shipping
The shipping activities of Buss, combined under the name Buss Shipping, were merged with the traditional shipping company Leonhardt & Blumberg in 2017. This joint venture operates more than 40 container ships, whereas the chartering is carried out by Hanseatic Unity Chartering. This company with its headquarters in Hamburg and Singapore combines the chartering activities of five shipping companies: Asiatic & Atlantic Lloyd, Borealis Maritime, Leonhardt & Blumberg and Reederei NORD with a total of more than 150 container ships. The merger is proving to be an extremely sensible step in container shipping, since this area has been in crisis for over 10 years.
Investments
Since 2003, the issuing house has been designing and marketing closed-end funds in the field of maritime logistics. Buss Capital quickly became the market leader in container funds and at the same time an important financial partner for container leasing companies. From 2008 onwards, Buss Capital opened up further markets with real estate funds, ship funds and funds in the cruise market. To date, around 31,000 investors have invested around 1.1 billion euros of equity in a total of 88 funds and direct investments as well as a closed-end alternative investment fund. The total investment volume of the placed investments amounts to around 2.5 billion euros. As part of a strategic realignment, the management of Buss Capital has founded a new company in 2020: Buss Capital Invest designs and distributes investments in tangible assets outside closed-end funds and direct investments. Its focus lies on registered bonds, other similar investments and digital investments.
Wind Energy
The Buss Terminal in Eemshaven is the core field of the wind energy sector. Since 2011, it has primarily served as a base port for the storage, pre-assembly and shipping for offshore wind farms in the North Sea. In the following years Buss supplemented a number of other companies through acquisitions. Nowadays, Buss also offers the assembly and service of wind turbines onshore and offshore. In this development the division is pursuing a sustainable and innovative diversification of its services. These include, for example, drone-based inspection services with automatic damage detection or weather-independent blade repair platforms. In addition, Buss set up joint ventures with local partners in France and the USA to grow with the international renewable energy markets. Since 2019 all wind energy activities have been bundled in the holding company called "Buss Energy Group".
