BONDHOLDERS of troubled Chilean CSAV have agreed to split the shipping company into two entities, retaining CSAV logo for liner business but using the brand of its subsidiary Sudamericana Agencias Aereas y Maritimas SA (SAAM) for its agency business.

The separation helps CSAV look for a partner for its container services, reported London's Containerisation International, adding that Germany's Hapag-Lloyd remains at the top of the list of prospective partners.

CSAV posted a loss of US$343 million in the third quarter and has faced difficulty financing itself since. So this new arrangement has enabled CSAV to obtain a $100 million credit line from the multinational financial firm Banco Latinoamericano de Comercia Exterior SA with 14 per cent of SAAM's shares as collateral.