Maersk Group, the Danish shipping and energy conglomerate, last year made $925 million profit for the full year ending December 31, 2015, a plunge of 82 per cent compared to the $5.2 billion it earned in 2014.
Maersk, the parent company of APM Terminals, with Mr Nils S. Andersen as Group Chief Executive Officer, recorded its underlying profit for the full year as $3.1 billion, also down from the 2014 results when it made $4.5 billion in underlying profit.
Although the fall in oil price was blamed largely for the poor outing compared to last year, profits were lower in Maersk Line, Maersk Oil and APM Terminals and higher only in Maersk Drilling and APM Shipping Services.
“After a satisfactory result in the first half of the year with a ROIC of 10.2 per cent, Maersk Group was severely impacted by a widening supply-demand gap across most of its businesses, leading to significant oil price and freight rate reductions. The ROIC for the second half of the year was a negative 6.3 per cent, impacted by impairments of $2.5 billion after tax in Maersk Oil, and for Q4, there was an underlying loss of $9 million (profit of $1.0 billion),” a statement from the company reads in part.
The group said that it delivered a strong cash flow from operating activities of $8 billion ($8.8 billion) for the year and $2 billion ($2.4 billion) in Q4, despite a significant decline in container freight rates and oil prices.
“We are satisfied with the good operational performance across our businesses in 2015. Despite the very challenging market conditions in our industries, all business units delivered positive underlying profits,” Andersen said.
