SIMIC

Fourth quarter profit soared 415 per cent year on year to EUR397 million, drawn on 2020 revenues of EUR3.4 billion, up 9.08 per cent.

But container throughput declined 1.6 per cent in 2020 year to 11.8 million TEU. This compares to Maersk's five per cent fall and CMA CGM's drop of 2.7 per cent.

Average rate per TEU increased per cent to US$1,115 against Maersk's $1,000, OOCL's $1,100 and CMA CGM's $1,154.

"Market fundamentals remain fairly solid, especially for the upcoming couple of years," said CEO Rolf Habben Jansen.

Said chief financial officer Mark Frese: "2021 will also be dominated by the global coronavirus pandemic, and the current supply chain bottlenecks will presumably only abate significantly in the second half of the year."

Mr Frese said 70 per cent of the carrier's volume in Q4 20 consisted of long- or mid-term contract business, and that there would be "big increases coming through in Q1", due to the explosion in spot and contract freight rates.

On Hapag's acquisition of African trade specialist carrier NileDutch, Mr Habben Jansen said he hoped that the deal would be completed in the next three months. In the interim, the company would prepare for the "seamless integration" of its 12 ships and 300 staff, with the respective services integrated "over time".

Founded 40 years ago, Rotterdam-based NileDutch is ranked 40th in Alphaliner's carrier league table, with a capacity on its owned ships of 34,000 TEU and a fleet of 80,000 TEU, deployed across 10 liner services connecting Africa with Europe, Asia and South America.

"Its services are very complementary to our network," said Mr Habben Jansen, but said potential further acquisitions were very limited, if any - "at the moment there is nothing else cooking", said the CEO.