Well prepared for pandemoniac 2020
Hapag-Lloyd’s results in 2019 seemed far away, when during a webcast conference CEO Rolf Habben-Janssen explained the Hamburg carrier's outlook on 2020 at this stage: "Although supply chains are under pressure, we expect a decent month in April. An impact of the corona crisis is certain in H1/2020, it may also have an effect on Q3/2020. Freight rates are up so far in 2020, and there are no signals that this is going to change."
Nevertheless, Hapag-Lloyd is taking precautionary measures to keep liquidity up and has reacted to the shortage of containers by securing additional boxes - 20,000 teu in Europe and 80,000 teu in Asia.
Due to the roller coaster of the oil price, Habben Janssen said that "it is too early to change the plan" with reference to the bunker situation.
Yes, right, almost forgot, 2019 was also a good year for Hapag-Lloyd. The threshold of 12 million teu handled was reached (+1.45), also due to a strong finish in Q4/2019. Freight rates went up by 2.7% while transport expenses went down by 1.1%. CFO Mark Frese was especially happy with the increase of the group revenue (USD 14.1 billion) by 3.1% or USD 388 million.
Group profit amounted to USD 418 million. Over the year 2019, net debt was reduced by almost USD 1 billion. It is now at a level of USD 6.6 billion. Wrede's general message: "We remain cautious with investments and will mainly repay debts and invest in ship retrofitting due to IMO 2020." Hapag-Lloyd has currently no newbuilt order book. (cd)