By Mike Wackett
With its restructuring deadline of September 4 rapidly approaching, troubled line Hanjin Shipping has published its second-quarter results. A loss of $182 million does not make pleasant reading; but on the other hand, neither did the results from OOCL, Hapag-Lloyd, Maersk Line and the Japanese trio of “K” Line, MOL and NYK, in what has been a very bad six months for liner companies. Moreover, Hanjin’s customers did not desert the line in droves, as had been suggested in the media, despite its financial problems: in fact, the carrier actually grew its liftings by 1 per cent compared with Q2 2015, to 1,168,524 TEUs. Nevertheless, there are anxious days ahead for Hanjin’s executives as they try to successfully “wrap up” charter rate negotiations and ship finance extensions.
Reprinted courtesy of The Loadstar (www.theloadstar.co.uk)