All products grew volume well ahead of the market
Freight forwarder and logistics service provider Damco, part of the A.P. Moller-Maersk Group, reported a 19 per cent increase in net revenues compared to 2011. Net revenues in 2012 increased to US$3,272 million, from US$2,752 in 2011. Gross profit increased by 7 per cent to US$807 million.
“I am satisfied about our solid results for 2012”, comments Rolf Habben-Jansen, CEO of Damco. “We continue to grow and develop our business, in spite of continued difficult market conditions. I am particularly pleased that we have taken full advantage of our acquisition of NTS (a China-based freight forwarder), and that all of our products continue to grow organically faster than the market. In addition to that, we have made a number of strategic changes and invested a lot in the future. The expenses related to these changes mask the underlying trading of our business which is better than the pure numbers show, and that also gives us a lot of confidence going into 2013. This stems from a lot of hard work from everybody across our network”, he adds.
Damco shipped 797,700 TEUs, an increase of 6 per cent compared to 2011. Airfreight tonnage almost doubled, recording a growth over last year of 91 per cent. The rapid growth in airfreight was partly due to the full year effect of the acquisition of NTS in August 2011. Supply Chain Management volumes returned to growth and ended 5 per cent higher than last year.
The worsening market conditions as well as implementation costs related to new business, the restructuring in Europe and the cost associated with the HQ relocation caused downward pressure on Damco’s profitability: EBIT for 2012 was US$93 million, compared with US$97 million in 2011.
Early in 2012 Damco announced a restructuring of its European operations, which were split in East and West Europe regions. In September, Damco announced the relocation of its global headquarters from Copenhagen, Denmark to The Hague in The Netherlands. The move is scheduled to be completed in Q1 of 2013.
In October, Damco acquired freight forwarder Pacific Network Global Logistics, which significantly strengthened its position in Oceania.