Enlarge image
Maersk ship in the Port of Los Angeles
Photo: KEVORK DJANSEZIAN/ AFP
Most companies have suffered significantly from the corona pandemic, but not the Danish shipping company Maersk.
The company made record profits of $18 billion in 2021.
That is more than six times as much as in the already profitable first Corona year 2020. Maersk also set a Danish record: According to the local news agency Ritzau, never before has a Danish company made so much money in one year.
The shipping company's turnover jumped to 61.8 billion dollars thanks to enormously increased prices for container transport.
Compared to 2020, this is an increase of around 55 percent.
Maersk and its competitor MSC are by far the largest container shipping companies.
The main reason for the explosion in profits is the enormous increase in freight rates for sea transport.
The corona pandemic has thrown the schedules of the liner shipping companies so confused that ships and containers are often not where they should be - to the chagrin of consumers and companies, some of whom have had to wait a very long time for ordered goods for months.
In addition, the economic recovery, especially in China and the USA, which picked up earlier and more vigorously than in Germany, has increased the demand for sea transport to such an extent that capacities are more than exhausted.
A relaxation in the global supply chains of all things could slow down Maersk's business in the future.
Management expects 2022 adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (adjusted EBIT) to be around $19 billion.
That would be slightly less than the 19.8 billion dollars in 2021. Shipping will normalize, especially in the second half of the year.
Because of these bleak prospects for Maersk, the company's shares fell by more than two percent this Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Maersk is continuing the long-standing expansion of the shipping business into a complex logistics company: the Danes are taking over Pilot Freight Services for almost 1.7 billion US dollars.
The US company offers logistics, especially for large, unwieldy goods, from ordering to delivery.
Maersk only announced the takeover of the German flight logistics company Senator International in November.
hey/dpa