Kuehne + Nagel Group demonstrates strength

Despite the global economic crisis, the Kuehne + Nagel Group delivered solid results in 2009 and gained market share in all business units.

While turnover decreased by 19.4% to CHF 17,406 million, gross profit of CHF 5,863 million was just 6.2% below the previous year. Including an extraordinary provision of CHF 35 million related to competition investigations, net earnings decreased by 20.2% (14.2% excluding provision) to CHF 467 million.

For the 2009 business year, the Board of Directors will propose the same dividend as in 2008.
In 2009 the sea freight business was caught in the down-current of world recession. Worldwide volumes fell for the first time in global containerization history. Kuehne + Nagel, however, managed to win market share against the trend in many trade lanes and strengthened its position as global market leader.

Important factors were its sophisticated, value-creating product portfolio, customer focused IT solutions and increased group-wide sales activities. Kuehne + Nagel? 4.6 per cent volume decline was remarkably moderate compared with the approximate 12% overall market decline in sea freight volumes. In comparison with the previous year, EBITDA margin increased from 4.6% to 5.0%, while the operational result decreased by 17.9%.

The global airfreight market experienced an unprecedented slump in demand beginning in the fourth quarter 2008, a situation that did not stabilize until July 2009. For the whole year, the airfreight market declined by 12%. To counteract the effects of the recession, Kuehne + Nagel also increased its sales activities in this business field and concentrated on marketing its highly specialized services for niche segments.

Due to these efforts, the 9.2% volume decline was less than the overall market average. Thanks to continued market share gains, Kuehne + Nagel advanced to the third place in the ranking of global airfreight forwarders. At 5.6% (previous year: 5.7%) EBITDA margin remained stable, the operational result decreased by 28.1%. <Korea Shipping Gazette>