Hapag-Lloyd, the world's fifth-largest container shipping company, has been ruled out of the bidding round for South Korean rival HMM.

In a press brief last week, the company's CEO, Rolf Habben Jansen, said that Hapag-Lloyd had been "out of that process" when the South Korean government decided to only consider domestic buyers.

"We knew that was not an unlikely outcome," Jansen said, adding that Hapag-Lloyd still believes it could be a good partner for HMM in the future.

HMM is the world's seventh-largest container shipping company, with a fleet of almost 800,000 TEU. A purchase of HMM would have given Hapag-Lloyd a total capacity of around 2.7 million TEU, making it the world's fourth-largest container shipping company.

With Hapag-Lloyd out of the bidding round, only South Korean buyers remain to take over HMM. These are LX Group, Harim Co and Dongwon. The next phase of the process is expected to be completed in November, with a final decision on a sale.

Jansen: Hapag-Lloyd will continue to grow

Despite being out of the running for HMM, Jansen said that Hapag-Lloyd is still committed to growth. "We certainly have no urgency to do something any time soon," he said. "But when you look at our business in 2030, it probably will be somewhat bigger than it is today."

Jansen said that Hapag-Lloyd is in the process of finalizing its upcoming strategy and that it will ensure the company continues to grow. "We are going to set ourselves a target in terms of what kind of growth we are looking forward to towards 2030," he said.

Analysts have earlier pointed to the Japanese shipping company ONE as an obvious merger partner for Hapag-Lloyd. However, Jansen rejected this, saying that he does not think a merger with ONE is "on the cards."

"We certainly have no urgency to do something any time soon," he said. "We have a good track record of growing organically," he said. "We are not dependent on M&A."