In its financial statement for 2012, Switzerland-based logistics group Kuehne & Nagel (K&N) has revealed that volume growth across all business units failed to prevent a year-on-year decrease in overall results.
While turnover increased 5.9 per cent to CHF20.7bn (€16.9bn), operational result dropped 5.8 per cent to CHF921m (€750m) and net earnings dropped to CF493m (€401m).
Results were negatively impacted by declining profit margins, cost increases and an antitrust fine of CHF65m (€53m) imposed by the European Commission in March 2012, the group noted.
'Already in the first two quarters volume development in the international logistics industry suffered from the slowdown of growth in China and restrained consumer and investment spending in large parts of Europe,' said Reinhard Lange, CEO of K&N International. 'With the worsening of the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone in the second half of the year, the economic climate deteriorated rapidly, and the decline of the European imports and exports influenced the trade with the emerging countries in Asia and South America more strongly.
'Overcapacity, unprecedented rate volatility and strong pressure on profit margins were the results of this development,' he continued. 'K&N managed to increase its volumes in all business units, but was not able to compensate margin pressure and higher costs with the volume growth achieved, thus results decreased compared to the previous year.'
