New Maersk Line boss Soren Skou has his work cut out if he is to restore the world’s largest boxship operator to profitability.

Skou, who takes up his new job officially on 16 January, is used to depressed markets, having been moved across from tankers.

The 47-year-old is better known for running Maersk Tankers in a sector that is also suffering from one of shipping’s deepest recessions.

But if he is hoping for respite from low rates on the boxships front, he will be disappointed.

The last time Skou worked for Maersk Line was between 1983 and 1998 during an era of double-digit growth for container shipping.

He will never have witnessed a market as dire as today’s and faces a tough challenge if he is to bring AP Moller-Maersk’s box operations back into the red. But that is his task following the departure of Maersk chief executive Eivind Kolding, who has quit to take over as chairman of Danske Bank.

In his initial comments, Skou called for the kind of consolidation in the industry that appears to be happening. But the greatest challenge facing the sector is how to deal with massive overcapacity, which may require Skou taking measures his predecessor was unwilling to.

Freight rates on the Asia-Europe trades of around $500 per teu are massively loss-making for Maersk.

When things got this bad during the last recession of 2009, Maersk led the industry by laying up ships to restrict capacity.

This time around, it has been unwilling to repeat the experience lest its competitors jump in and pick up the volumes. Maersk is preparing the ground for the largest boxships ever built and needs volumes to fill them. It remains to be seen how Skou deals with that dilemma but he appears to have the experience to draw on.

In recent years, he has played an important role on the group’s executive board, leading initiatives to reduce costs in 2009 and 2010 and he is likely to put that to good effect in the container wing.

AP Moller-Maersk chief executive Nils Andersen describes Skou as a “sharp and visionary leader” and has charged him with growing Maersk’s presence. “He is quite the right man to continue the development of Maersk Line and expand our position in the market.”

In the current climate, that is easy to say but tougher to do.