HAMBURG (dpa-AFX) - The renewed sharp drop in freight prices following the pandemic has caused a slump in sales and profits at the shipping company Hapag-Lloyd. Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen intends to announce on Thursday exactly how this will affect the surplus of the world's fifth-largest container shipping company. This will also determine the dividend that shareholders can expect. The largest individual shareholders include the holding company of logistics billionaire Klaus-Michael Kühne and the City of Hamburg.

According to preliminary calculations, the Hamburg-based shipping company achieved a profit before interest and taxes (EBIT) of the equivalent of 2.5 billion euros last year. This was announced by Hapag-Lloyd at the end of January. A year earlier, the figure was 17.5 billion euros. Turnover slumped to 17.9 billion euros, almost halving. In the record year 2022, the company achieved the highest bottom-line profit in its history and distributed a dividend of 63 euros per share.

Hapag-Lloyd had already warned in November that conditions for container shipping would remain difficult. The industry's capacity will exceed demand by 2024, which will make "active cost management" unavoidable./kf/DP/stw