Hapag-Lloyd published its annual report on Thursday, indicating that a slight increase in operating profit was achieved in 2024.
“ Group EBITDA amounted to $5 billion . EBIT improved slightly year-over-year, reaching $2.8 billion. At $2.6 billion, Group profit was lower than the previous year, primarily due to lower interest income and higher tax expenses,” the company said in a statement.
“In a challenging market environment, we delivered solid results and further increased customer satisfaction. We have further consolidated and expanded our terminal business under the Hanseatic Global Terminals brand. We have worked to further improve processes, which will bear fruit in the coming years, and we have increased our investments in digitalization and employee training. Finally, we launched the largest newbuilding program in our company’s history, which will allow us to further modernize and decarbonize our fleet,” said Rolf Habben Jansen, CEO of Hapag-Lloyd AG.
In the liner shipping segment, the company reported that shipping volume for the whole of 2024 increased by 4.7% to 12.5 million TEUs (20-foot containers), while the average freight rate remained stable at $1,492/TEU.
As a result, revenue increased to $20.3 billion. Despite increased shipping costs related to the necessary rerouting of vessels around the Cape of Good Hope , EBITDA increased to $4.9 billion, while EBIT remained at the prior-year level of $2.7 billion.
The Terminals and Infrastructure segment saw an improvement in EBITDA in fiscal year 2024, reaching $151 million, thanks in particular to several acquisitions made during the previous fiscal year. EBIT increased to $72 million.
Based on these results, the Executive Board and Supervisory Board of Hapag-Lloyd AG will propose a dividend of 8.20 euros per share for the 2024 financial year to the Annual General Meeting , corresponding to a total payout of 1.4 billion euros. This once again makes Hapag-Lloyd shares one of the most attractive on the German dividend market.
For the 2025 financial year, the Board of Directors expects the Group’s EBITDA to be between US$2.5 billion and US$4 billion and EBIT up to US$1.5 billion , a forecast subject to considerable uncertainty due to the high volatility of freight rates and significant geopolitical challenges.
“In 2025, we are off to an excellent start with Gemini, but the economic and geopolitical environment remains fragile. Against this backdrop, we forecast earnings in 2025 to be lower than in 2024. In the first half of this year, we will roll out our Gemini network and expect to set new standards in schedule reliability. We will continue to develop Hanseatic Global Terminals and look forward to further expanding our landside business. At the same time, we will closely monitor our unit costs and focus on becoming even more efficient and environmentally friendly,” stated Rolf Habben Jansen.
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