Skou News

Shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk said on Monday it had appointed Vincent Clerc, who has been with the firm for 25 years, to replace Soren Skou as Chief Executive Officer as of Jan 1. Company veteran Clerc, who currently heads the company's Ocean & Logistics business, is taking the helm at a time of slowing demand for transport and logistics as a global recession looms. "The strong tailwinds that benefited the supply chain industries during the pandemic are coming to an end," said chair of the board Robert Maersk Uggla in a statement.

Shipping giant Maersk plans to produce up to two million tonnes of e-methanol a year in Spain by 2030 to supply its fleet of cargo ships and reduce its carbon footprint, the Spanish government said on Thursday.The project will require an investment of about 10 billion euros ($9.75 billion), according to Spanish government calculations, and Spain may enter as a strategic investor. An agreement on the project, which will be partly financed by EU recovery funds, was signed on Thursday in Madrid by Maersk CEO Søren Skou and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

Shipping group Maersk warned on Wednesday of slowing demand for transport and logistics as a global recession looms and cut its forecast for container demand this year, even as it beat third-quarter earnings expectations. "It is clear that freight rates have peaked and started to normalize during the quarter, driven by both decreasing demand and easing of supply chain congestion," Chief Executive Soeren Skou said in a statement. The company's shares were down 4.4% at 0839 GMT, and have now fallen 38% since hitting a record high of 24,920 Danish crowns on Jan. 13.

A.P. Moller-Maersk's chief executive said on Thursday he expects a "modest" pick-up in trade for the upcoming holidays this year amid concerns about the slowing global economy and consumer demand."Volumes headed into the Christmas season are lower than a normal year," Soren Skou said in a Reuters Newsmaker interview.Ocean freight volumes will be flat or lower this year, though there is still congestion in global supply chains, he said. U.S. consumers aren't buying as much as they…

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has directed the government to cooperate with AP Moeller-Maersk to establish a network to produce and distribute green energy and clean fuels for ships, a presidency spokesperson said on Monday.Maersk Chief Executive Soren Skou discussed with Sisi during their meeting a project to produce clean fuel for ships with investments of $15 billion, the statement added.There were no immediate details on the mechanism of the cooperation.(Reuters - Reporting by Moataz Mohamed; Editing by Jan Harvey)

NAVTOR signed an Integrated Partner agreement with Veracity by DNV, a deal intended to help shipowners and operators simplify reporting, enable sustainable shipping and unlock green finance.“Our ecosystem collects, aggregates and utilizes enormous amounts of business-critical data,” said Bjørn Åge Hjøllo, Chief Sustainability Officer, NAVTOR. “That is used to make shipping safer, simpler and more efficient – automating tasks, reducing fuel consumption, saving costs, and, in short, delivering complete asset awareness and control for our customers.

Shipping group Maersk expects global container demand to fall this year as sales of durable goods come to a "standstill", leaving flat-screen TVs and furniture piling up in warehouses, the company said on Wednesday.A surge in consumer demand and pandemic-related logjams holding up containers in key ports had boosted freight rates and profits in the shipping industry in recent quarters, yet the cost of living crisis has reversed that trend.Maersk, one of the world's biggest container shippers with a market share of around 17%…

Maersk has found possible buyers for its stake in Global Ports Investments, which operates ports in Russia as it withdraws from the country following a final cargo shipment this week, the Danish shipping group said on Wednesday.Maersk put its 30.75% share of Global Ports up for sale as it decided to quit Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine.It said talks were taking place with several potential buyers without giving names and that it did not expect to have to give the stake…

Shipping group Maersk still has vessels calling at Russian ports to deliver containers booked before the invasion of Ukraine began and to pick up around 50,000 containers stranded in Russia, Chief Executive Soren Skou said on Tuesday.The company has temporarily halted new container bookings to and from Russia, as a consequence of what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine.“We have about 50,000 of our containers in Russia today. Most of them are empty, they are our property,” Skou said.“We need them, and we are very reluctant to leave them in Russia.

Two top European shippers warned on Wednesday freight costs were likely to remain high well into this year, offering no relief to customers including the world's biggest retailers, though they said bottlenecks should ease later in the year.Pandemic-related disruption and a surge in consumer demand drove up prices for shipping goods around the world last year, boosting profits for both container shipping group Maersk and freight forwarder DSV."Freight rates remain very high, volumes are strong and lots of shipping capacity is still tied up outside ports…

Shipping group Maersk expects 2022 earnings to be around as high as last year, it said on Wednesday, as the supply chain disruption that sent freight rates soaring extends into the first half.It expects underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) at around $24 billion this year, similar to last year, but slightly below the $24.4 billion expected by analysts in a poll gathered by the company.Its shares were down around 2% in early trading and have fallen 11% since reaching an all-time high in mid-January.While Maersk's customers faced "severe challenges"…

Swiss-based container group MSC has overtaken Denmark's Maersk as the world's biggest shipper, the company said, confirming data from intelligence provider Alphaliner.After taking delivery of several ships last year, MSC or Mediterranean Shipping Company has capacity to move the equivalent of 4,284 million twenty-foot containers, Alphaliner said. That compares with Maersk's 4,282 million.Both companies, which according to Alphaliner hold markets share of around 17%, said size was not the objective.Asked for comment…

Shipping giants are heading for port, but not in the traditional sense. Companies like Denmark’s A.P. Moller-Maersk and Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd are riding a record valuation wave thanks to a year of sky-high container rates. Gobbling up land-based logistics rivals would be one use for the cash burning a hole in their pockets. It would also serve as a handy buffer against future supply-chain crunches.Pandemic upheaval has benefitted the shipping industry. Government support, such as checks mailed out to U.S. households, fueled a consumer spending spree. Freight rates have soared.

Nippon Yusen and Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, Japan's biggest and third-biggest shipping companies, reported record quarterly profits as they benefited from higher freight rates amid the chaos hitting global supply chains.The logjams and bottlenecks in the world's trade system, which threatens to derail a recovery from the worst health crisis in a century, has provided a bonanza to such companies as freight rates soared to the highest since 2008. "Port and inland congestion did not improve due to a shortage of drivers for inland haulage…

The chaos that has bedeviled global supply chains in recent months will extend into next year, with a lack of truck drivers preventing hundreds of container vessels from offloading goods around the world, shipping group Maersk said.“The whole system has become one gigantic bottleneck,” Chief Executive Soren Skou told reporters on Tuesday.Skou said the biggest problem preventing containers from leaving ports is a lack of labor, particularly drivers of heavy goods vehicles in the…

Maersk bought two e-commerce companies on Friday and said more acquisitions were coming soon as the world's biggest container shipping line boosts its bet on land-based services.Maersk, which handles one in five containers shipped worldwide, aims to expand its land-based logistics services, hoping to gain a larger share of the supply chain from existing shipping clients such as Puma and Walmart.It bought Visible Supply Chain Management and B2C Europe, both specialised in e-commerce, for a combined enterprise value of $924 million, Maersk said."It won't be long before we have a logistics busine

Maersk is accelerating its plan to transform itself from a container shipping giant into an integrated logistics company following its strong performance during the pandemic, Chief Executive Soren Skou said on Tuesday.Maersk, which handles one in five containers shipped worldwide, aims to expand its land-based logistics services, hoping to gain a larger share of the supply chain from existing shipping clients such as Puma and Walmart."I don't want to put a date to it, but I'm certain that our logistics business has potential to become just a big as ocean shipping measured in turnover…

Denmark's Maersk said on Wednesday it expected its "exceptionally strong" performance in the first quarter to continue for the rest of the year, driven by high demand for shipping containers from China to the United States.Maersk, which handles about one in five containers shipped worldwide, said there were not enough ships available in the world to meet a surge in consumer demand, resulting in record-high freight rates.The firm's shares traded 4% higher at 0921 GMT, near a record high reached last week."The situation today is that our customers are trying to meet a very…

Shipping group Maersk said on Wednesday it would accelerate plans to decarbonize sea-borne container shipping by putting the world's first vessel powered by carbon-neutral fuel into operation in 2023, seven years ahead of its original plan.The shipping industry, which carries around 80% of global trade and accounts for around 3% of global carbon emissions, pledged last year to have ships and marine fuels with zero carbon emissions ready by 2030."Fast-tracked by advances in technology and increasing customer demand for sustainable supply chains…

A surge in demand for goods like furniture and exercise equipment from locked-down consumers has sparked a jump in shipping rates, boosting profits for Danish freight giant Maersk, the company said on Wednesday.Yet shares in the world’s largest container shipping line fell as much as 8% as it missed analysts’ lofty forecasts for the end of last year and gave more cautious guidance for 2021 than anticipated.Maersk’s ocean shipping business, its largest division, “performed at record level in the quarter as a consequence of the strong rebound of demand…

Shipping group Maersk said on Wednesday it is confident about the outlook for shipping beyond 2020 as a second wave of coronavirus infections has only had a limited impact on global freight volumes.Maersk, the world’s biggest container shipping line, has recovered faster than expected after the pandemic halted trade around the world, benefiting from higher retail sales in the United States.“The second wave of coronavirus infections has had relatively limited impact on trade volumes,” Chief Executive Soren Skou told a news briefing after announcing third-quarter results in line with preliminary

The world's biggest container shipping line, Maersk, said on Tuesday demand was recovering faster than expected and lifted its earnings outlook, while also announcing plans to cut 2,000 jobs as it streamlines to cut costs.Maersk, which handles about one in five containers shipped worldwide, said that though cargo volumes were still down on last year they had picked up more than forecast after falling sharply at the height of the coronavirus pandemic a few months ago."A.P. Moller - Maersk is on track to deliver a strong Q3 with solid earnings growth across all our businesses…

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