Subscribe to RSS feedHapag Lloyd loses US$302m in first quarter
Germany's largest container operator, Hapag-Lloyd, suffered operating losses of €222m (US$302.5m) during the first three months of 2009, compared with an operating profit of €18.5m for the same period in the previous year, Lloyd's List reports.
The carrier’s sales dropped by 22.9% to €1.1bn as freight rates and volumes plummeted, according to Rainer Feuerhake, chief financial officer of Tui, the tourism group which sold the majority of Hapag-Lloyd in March.
Tui did not release separate net loss or profit figures for Hapag-Lloyd.
Tui still owns a 43.3% stake in Hapag-Lloyd and is the single largest shareholder in the line.
The carrier’s results for the first quarter were fully consolidated in Tui’s balance sheet for the last time.
Freight rates were down 14.4% on average while volumes declined by 15% year-on-year, Mr Feuerhake told analysts yesterday.
Freight rates fell on all routes except the transpacific trades, where they increased slightly by 3.5%.
The drop was particularly strong on the Far East route, where rates shrank by 35.9%.
Volumes fell on all routes, most of all on Atlantic trades, where the volume of cargo was down by 19.2%.
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