Hapag-Lloyd Returns to Profit Via CSAV
By Aiswarya Lakshmi
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
The German shipping line Hapag-Lloyd posted an operating profit of €366m ($406m) in 2015 compared with a loss of €382m a year earlier.
The ocean carrier, which merged with the container arm of Chile’s CSAV in late 2014, reported revenue of $9.8bn, up from $9.0bn a year earlier. The boxship owner says it has reached its earnings targets for 2015 as CSAV deal pushed up revenue.
Revenue ballooned to 8.8 billion euros from 6.8 billion euros as container traffic jumped to 7.4 million 20-foot-equivalent units compared with 5.9 million TEUs last time, “primarily attributable” to the contribution from CSAV.
The transport volume rose up to around 7.4 million TEU for 2015 from 5.9 million TEU in 2014.
As at the 31 December 2015 balance sheet date, Hapag-Lloyd had EUR 5 billion, compared to EUR 4.2 billion in 2014 in equity and a liquidity reserve of EUR 962.4 million. The company’s net debt amounted to EUR 3,334 million.
The Hamburg-based carrier is currently the fifth largest shipping line globally although it will soon be overtaken once the COSCO and China Shipping merger is completed.