Global freight forwarder and logistics services provider Damco, part of the A.P. Moller – Maersk Group, reports revenues of US$1,531 million for the first half of 2013 and an after-tax loss of $2 million (see table below). While gross profits for the second quarter and first half of the year compared favourably to results achieved in 2012, earnings before interest and taxes were lower than in 2012 because of higher-than-planned costs to strengthen and prepare the organization for the future in a number of the growth markets.
Year-over-year growth remains healthy with air freight volumes significantly up (+14 per cent), outperforming the market. Supply chain management volumes grew a very solid 10 per cent whilst sea freight volumes contracted slightly (-1 per cent). “In weak markets, we continue to invest in building the future with special focus on expanding our geographical coverage and rolling out our new global freight management system” comments CEO Rolf Habben-Jansen.
“This is needed to enable future growth and to optimize our cost to serve. We will start seeing the benefits from this later this year and expect to see solid year-on-year improvements in the results from Q4 2013 onwards” he adds.
In the upcoming quarters Damco does not anticipate a major improvement in the market situation. Damco will remain fully focused on further improving and extending the services to customers to enable them to continue to grow further with Damco and on starting to capture the significant planned benefits from the investments made in the last quarters to boost efficiency.