VINETA-owned maritime carriers MACS Maritime Carrier Shipping (MACS) and HUGO STINNES Schiffahrt (HSS) set up a joint agency operation in Spain, effective May 15th, 2024.

Operating under the brand name Stinnes & MACS Agencia Marítima and headquartered in Bilbao, Spain, the new agency will collaborate with former HSS representative Noatum Maritime Spain S.A.U. to manage marketing, sales, and port operations for both companies’ multipurpose (MPP) liner services.

Stinnes & MACS Agencia Marítima will handle the HSS SANMEX MPP Service, connecting Spain and Portugal with Mexico and the US Gulf, as well as the MACS MPP service running between mainland Spain (excluding Galicia) and Southern Africa.

For MACS operations, Comarsa, Vigo will continue to manage the Galician region, while MACS’s own agency MCPAS, with offices in Leixoes and Lisbon, will maintain responsibility for Portugal.

Previously, Vasco Catalana, Bilbao, had represented MACS in Spain since 1983. MACS expressed gratitude to Vasco for their successful development of the Southern African market over the past 40 years.

Speaking of the joint agency operation, Dietrich Scheder-Bieschin, owner of MACS Maritime Carrier Shipping, said, “With the inception of a MACS branded agency in Spain an era is coming to an end. Vasco Catalana has been a successful agent of MACS since 1983 and we thank the Arzaloza family and the Vasco team very much for their loyalty and support rendered to MACS in four decades.”

„We are very grateful that Noatum has given us the opportunity to operate in the Spanish market under our own name STINNES in the future. We are sure that this will further strengthen and grow the position of Stinnes with its excellent SANMEX MPP service from Northern Spain,” Jens Kroczek, Managing Director of Hugo Stinnes Schiffahrt, said.