Danish logistics giant A.P. Møller-Maersk has reported on a difficult nine-month period between January-September 2009, with losses of US$706m (€470.7m) hit by lower revenue, which fell 25 per cent to US$35.3bn (€23.5bn) across all operations.
According to a financial statement, the global economic crisis had a 'severe negative impact' on the activities of the group, particularly in container shipping where freight rates and container volumes fell 30 per cent and 5 per cent respectively.
Revenues for the group's container shipping activities, including Maersk Line and Safmarine, fell from US$22bn (€14.7bn) in 2008 to US$15bn (€10bn), with the segment recording a nine-month loss of US$163m (€108.7bn) from a profit of US$1.7bn (€1.1bn) last year.
Maersk said that Damco, the company's new combined logistics subsidiary, had seen falling activity as a result of the global economic crisis, but had improved the segment result after tax by cutting costs.
'As expected, the A.P. Møller-Maersk Group was still negatively affected by the challenging market conditions in the third quarter of 2009, particularly in the markets for the group's container vessels and tankers,' said group CEO Nils Smedegaard Andersen. 'The strong focus on reducing the level of costs continues to yield positive results, and with sales of treasury shares and issuance of bonds we have taken steps to strengthen the A.P. Møller-Maersk Group's robust financial basis and log-term funding position.'
The nine-month result has led the group to forecast a year-on-year lossof close to US$1bn (€666.8m) for the full 12 months of 2009, although the outlookfor 2009 is still subject to uncertainty.
