RTR: Hapag-Lloyd nine-month net profit soars 10-fold on record freight rates

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REUTERS reports:

German container shipping line Hapag-Lloyd (HLAG.DE) reported a more than 10-fold surge in nine-month net profit on Friday, citing record freight rates amid scarce transport capacity and rising transport volumes.

The world’s fifth biggest operator said net profit climbed to 5.6 billion euros ($6.41 billion) in the January-September period, from 538 million euros a year earlier.

It expects earnings momentum to remain at a high level for the rest of the year while operators and customers across the globe will face more severe infrastructure bottlenecks due to the coronavirus crisis which has disrupted supply chains.

Global supply chains are under enormous pressure from delays due to logjams at ports.

Chief Executive Officer Rolf Habben Jansen told Reuters he expected some relaxation of the situation around the Chinese New Year festivities around Feb. 1 and up to the end of the second quarter… 

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– The full release can be downloaded here.

– Yesterday, the company also announced the appointment of Donya-Florence Amer as chief information officer. It said she will join on 1 February 2022, adding:

Amer, 49, started her professional career in 1999 at IBM, where she held various management positions. She has played leadership roles at Bosch since 2017, initially as Executive Vice President and as a member of the CIO Management Board. Since 2020, she has been the CEO of Bosch Climate Solutions, of which she was a co-founder.

“By bringing Donya-Florence Amer on board, we have been able to secure for ourselves a highly qualified expert in the field of information technology and digital business modelling,” says Michael Behrendt, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Hapag-Lloyd AG. “The Supervisory Board is firmly convinced that, with her extensive experience, she will provide us with invaluable support in the ongoing implementation of our digitisation strategy.”

A new IT portfolio on the Executive Board will be established. Thus, as CIO, Amer will be the fifth member of the Executive Board – alongside CEO Rolf Habben Jansen, CFO Mark Frese, COO Dr Maximilian Rothkopf and CPO Joachim Schlotfeldt.

In addition, Amer will be the first woman to serve on the company’s Executive Board in its then-175-year history.