Logistics company
Hapag-Lloyd significantly increases profit forecast for 2021
Hapag-Lloyd is benefiting from the rising prices for container transports. Photo: Marcus Brandt / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The logistics company Hapag-Lloyd is raising its profit forecast. The booming economy is reflected in the global trade in goods – with a growing demand for the transport of goods by sea.
The upheavals in global container shipping are causing Hapag-Lloyd’s profits to bubble even more than expected.
“Since the earnings dynamics are likely to remain at a high level, the management board of Hapag-Lloyd AG decided today to raise the earnings outlook,” reported the Hamburg group on Friday.
Before interest and taxes (EBIT), a profit in the range of 8.7 billion to 9.5 billion euros should jump out instead of the previously expected 6.2 billion to 7.9 billion euros. That would be around seven times as much as in 2020: for the past year, the annual report showed a group EBIT of a good 1.3 billion euros. With more than 240 ships, Hapag-Lloyd is one of the world’s most important container shipping companies.
The economic upturn in many regions of the world after the Corona recession is reflected in the global trade in goods – with a growing demand for the transport of goods by sea. Persistent disruptions in the supply chains, however, contribute to the fact that transport capacities are scarce. There are delays and containers are often not where they are needed. All of this is causing the prices for container transports – in industry jargon, freight rates – to rise sharply. According to earlier forecasts, this situation should relax in the first quarter of 2022 at the earliest.
In the first nine months alone, according to preliminary figures, Hapag-Lloyd posted an EBIT of 5.8 billion euros, after around 0.9 billion euros in the same period of the previous year. The company did not make any figures or forecasts for profit after taxes. Final figures for the third quarter are due to be released on November 12th.