Global business conglomerate Maersk has delivered a strong cash flow from operating activities of US$8 billion for 2015 and $2 billion in Q4, 2015, despite a significant decline in container freight rates and oil prices, with an underlying profit of $3.1 billion, compared to $4.5 billion for the 2014 financial year.
After a satisfactory result in H1, 2015, Maersk was severely impacted by a widening supply-demand gap across most of its businesses, leading to significant oil price and freight rate reductions.
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For Q4, 2015 there was an underlying loss of $9 million and a profit of $1 billion.
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Nils S. Andersen, CEO of Maersk, said: “We are satisfied with the good operational performance across our businesses in 2015. Despite the very challenging market conditions in our industries, all business units delivered positive underlying profits and the Maersk group achieved an underlying result of $3.1 billion.
“Given our expectation that the oil price will remain at a low level for a longer period, we have impaired the value of a number of Maersk Oil’s assets by $2.6 billion after tax.”
Mr Anderson concluded: “We will continue to strengthen the Group’s position through strong operational performance and growth investments.”
