Hapag-Lloyd signs an agreement to buy compatriot Deutsche Afrika-Linien

Beyond the new opportunities offered by this Purchase, Habben Jansen also highlighted the serious elements of uncertainty weighing on the future of the group's activities shipowners: "for us - he explained - the financial year 2022 started successfully, but supply disruptions chains have not yet been reduced concretely. In addition to that, We are all confronted with the terrible war in Ukraine. We - ha specified the CEO of Hapag-Lloyd - we are united with the community international, we have interrupted our reservations for the shipments to and from Russia and we ask for a reduction in tensions and peace. The safety and well-being of all our employees - continued Habben Jansen - continue to be the our top priority and we will also do everything we can to provide humanitarian support."

Referring to the year just behind his back, Habben Jansen pointed out that Hapag-Lloyd looks back "to a year of exceptional success in which we have invested massively in ships modern and in new containers. In addition - he added - we have significantly strengthened our financial position and patrimonial. However - he specified - also the transport costs have unfortunately increased significantly mainly to cause of bottlenecks in global supply chains." The transport costs, it is necessary to detect, are yes increased significantly as pointed out by Habben Jansen given that amounted to 10.32 billion euros, but their rise by +12.9% is much lower than the huge growth of the giro business. An increase, that of expenses, which has been mainly generated by the increase in charges for the purchase of fuel and for the handling and transport of loads, which were equal respectively to 1.68 billion euros (+19.2%) and €5.39 billion (+14.3%); there was also an increase in expenses for equipment and its repositioning and those relating to the fleet and navigation activity (excluding those for the purchase of the bunker) which were equal respectively to 1.22 billion euros (+7.5%) and 1.94 billion euros euro (+5.8%).

The wide gap between income and expenditure shows one extraordinary increase in profits: in 2021 EBITDA was amounted to 10.85 billion euros (+301.9%), EBIT to 9.39 billion euro (+613.9%) and net profit at 9.08 billion euros (+871.2%).

Hapag-Lloyd believes that in the first half of 2022 the value of EBITDA will be between 10.7 and 12.4 billion €3.52 billion in the first half of 2021, and the value of EBIT will be between 8.9 and 10.7 billion euros compared to 2.89 billion in the first six months of 2021.

Of the record level of 11,87 million teu (+0.3%) of volumes containerized transported last year by the fleet of the Hapag-Lloyd, 3.04 million teu were embarked on the ships employed in services with Latin America (+5.2%), 2.27 million teu were transported on routes with the Far East (-0.5%), 2.10 million teu on transatlantic routes (+1.9%), 1.77 million teu on the transpacific ones (-4.5%), 1.56 million of teu were transported by scheduled services with the Middle East (+5.5%), 608 thousand teu were transported on the routes intra-Asian (-26.8%) and 522 thousand teu on routes with Africa (+18,4%).

In 2021 the average maritime freight per container transported by Hapag-Lloyd's fleet amounted to 2,003 dollars/teu (+79.6%), with an average freight of 1,745 dollars/teu relative to only services with Latin America (+54.3%), 2,479 dollars/teu for services with the Far East (+153.2%), 1,808 dollars/teu for the transatlantic services (+37.8%), $2,746/teu for services transpacific (+87.2%), 1,512 dollars/teu for services with the Middle East (+80.6%), $1,295/teu for intra-Asian services (+114.0%) and 1,997 dollars/teu for services with Africa (+67.0%).

As for the acquisition of containerized assets of compatriot DAL, with the transaction Hapag-Lloyd will increase its presence in the segment of maritime services with Africa, sector of operations in which Deutsche specialises Afrika-Linien, Hamburg-based company that has been founded in 1890 which currently has only one container ship of the capacity of 6,589 teu and a fleet of containers of property and rental whose consistency is equal to about 17,800 teu. This ship and containers will pass to the Hapag-Lloyd together with about 150 people, including employees of agencies, working in the maritime transport segment containerized by DAL. "Africa - commented Habben Jansen - remains an important strategic growing market, in particular for our offer of services to and from South Africa. DAL is a valuable addition that allows us to offer our customers a better network and further coverage of ports in this region. We look forward to welcoming colleagues from the FROM. With their extensive experience and knowledge of the market we will support considerably in view of further growth in Africa'.