Maersk's recent optimism justified
The remodelling of the group seems to be paying off for A.P. Møller - Mærsk. Although some operational figures went down, profitability, especially in new fields of activity, was good in Q3/2019. While general revenues decreased by 0.9% to USD 10.1 billion in Q3, ebitda increased by 14% to USD 1.7 billion.
In the ocean segment, both ebitda (+13% to USD 1.3 billion) and the margin (17.4% from 15.4%) surged. The defensive measures, "capacity management and cost performance", delivered good results. The recently pushed new playing fields of logistics & services improved their ebitda by significant 34% to USD 94 million and reported a margin of 5.8% (4.4%), driven by gross profit increasing by 13% to USD 336 million.
The rise in profitability was due to higher activities in intermodal and warehousing & distribution. These were the strong points, partly offset by lower revenue in air and sea freight forwarding. As announced earlier (see ITJ Daily of 23 October 2019), A.P. Moller - Maersk expects the financial year's ebitda to end up in the range of USD 5.4-5.8 billion. Accumulated gross capex for 2020-2021 is expected to be USD 3.0-4.0 billion, while expectations are maintained around USD 2.2 billion in 2019. (fd)