Maersk sees record earnings continuing into 2022
Written by Nick Blenkey
Maersk CEO Søren Skou: “With the war in Ukraine, an energy crisis in Europe, high inflation, and a looming global recession there are plenty of dark clouds on the horizon.”
A.P. Moller – Maersk (Maersk) has delivered on the strong profits guidance it gave back in January.
Today, it reported record earnings for 2021: Revenue was up 55% to $61.8 billion, EBITDA tripled to $24 billion and free cash flow was $16.5 billion, allowing the company to make strategic long-term investments in decarbonization and logistics growth, combined with a strong cash distribution to shareholders.
Maersk expects the fiscal good times to keep rolling in 2022. In its guidance for 2022, the company says it expects the current market situation to continue into the second quarter, with a normalization to occur early in the second half of the year.
Based on these assumptions Maersk expects for full year 2022:
- Underlying EBITDA of around $24 billion
- Underlying EBIT of around $19bn
- Free cash flow (FCF) of above $15 billion
Ocean is expected to grow in line with global container demand, which is expected to grow 2-4% in 2022, subject, says Maersk, “to high uncertainties related to the current congestion, network disruptions and demand patterns.”
“Exceptional market conditions led to record-high growth and profitability in A.P. Moller – Maersk, however it also led to supply chain disruptions and severe challenges for our customers,” said Maersk CEO Søren Skou, commenting on the 2021 result. “We spent tremendous efforts in mitigating bottlenecks by expanding capacity across Ocean, improving productivity in Terminals and growing our global logistics footprint. We will continue these efforts as we see the current market situation persist into the second quarter. At the same time, we see conversations with customers change from procurement-led freight rate discussions to more holistic conversations on how we truly partner to keep supply chains running end-to-end. This clearly validates our strategy.”
More in the presentation material from Maersk’s teleconference this morning:
