Maersk lifts 2010 guidance
DANISH group Moller-Maersk upgraded its earnings guidance for the full-year, yesterday saying its container shipping business had rebounded faster than expected.
“The upgrade is due to a combination of (freight) rates and cost reductions,” chief executive Nils Smedegaard Andersen said. “We have taken $3bn out of the cost base on an annual basis, and that makes us more competitive.”
After diving to its first loss on record in 2009, the group – which includes the world’s biggest container shipping company Maersk Line – said in early March it expected a “modest profit” in 2010.
“The improvement of especially the container business has since then been greater than envisaged and the company now expects that the profit for 2010 will exceed the profit for 2008 (which was $3.5bn corresponding to 17.6bn Danish crowns at the time), provided that freight rates, oil prices and the US dollar exchange rate remain stable at current levels,” it said.
Andersen added: “We know the development in the second quarter, and have a degree of certainty about how the third quarter is going, and there are prospects for good utilisation (of the fleet) in the peak season.”
The upgraded expectation includes an accounting gain from a previously announced sale of shares in the Yantian port terminal in China which has been closed, Maersk said.
The conglomerate’s sale of its Netto Foodstores in Britain is still subject to approval from competition authorities, and a possible gain from that sale has not been included in the new estimate, Maersk said. In May, it announced plans to sell Netto UK to Asda, a unit of US retailer Wal-Mart.