Hapag-Lloyd has announced its financial results for the first half of 2015. It reported revenue of €4.67bn, an increase of 45.27% year-on-year. The company also recorded EBITDA €493.3m for H1, an increase of 634.08%. Accordingly Hapag-Lloyd’s margin stood at 10.57%.
In the first half of 2015, Hapag-Lloyd increased transport volumes and revenue as well as earnings. This growth was driven by the merger with Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores (CSAV).
Hapag-Lloyd stated that its transport volume increased to around 3.7m TEUs in the first six months of 2015, up by 29.4% compared to the same period in 2014 and mainly due to the merger with CSAV. The average freight rate in the first half of 2015 came in at $1,296/ TEU, which actually represented a 9% fall year-on-year.
The company attributed the increase in EBITDA to initial synergies from the CSAV merger and additional cost savings from its OCTAVE cost programme. OCTAVE includes improvement initiatives in several areas such as procurement and further fleet modernisation.
In the first six months of 2015 transport expenses rose significantly less than the transport volume as Hapag-Lloyd realized initial synergies and cost savings from its OCTAVE programme. The transfer of CSAV’s services and ship systems into the various trades of Hapag-Lloyd was completed in the second quarter of 2015, slightly ahead of the original plan. Now that the integration is almost completed, Hapag-Lloyd targets net annual synergies of around $400m fully realized by 2017.
“After a solid start into 2015, we are satisfied with our results in the first half of 2015”, said Rolf Habben Jansen, CEO of Hapag-Lloyd. “Our results prove that the merger with CSAV was the right decision and an important milestone in the development of Hapag-Lloyd, as we already benefit from the integration – and also see the first results of the OCTAVE programme. We are well on track to achieve clearly positive full year operating results in 2015. The market environment remains very challenging, but we are well positioned in the market and remain highly resilient due to Hapag-Lloyd’s well-balanced portfolio of trades and services.”
