Bangkok Shipowners and Agent Association

Bangkok Shipowners and Agents Association
To represent and promote the views and policies of the Association to the Thai Government and all other governmental official and non-governmental bodies which may be concerned with shipping.
Home News World Shipping News MOL also sinks further into the red
MOL also sinks further into the red PDF Print E-mail
Friday, 03 February 2012 08:28
CIOnline 1/2/12      
                                             
Mitsui OSK Line joined the growing list of carriers to declare red figures last year. In the first nine months of its financial year started April 1, 2011, Group revenue only fell by 9% compared to the same period in 2010, down to JPY1,073,671 (USD13,811) million, but its operating result (EBIT) collapsed from a profit of JPY108,309 million to a loss of JPY18,375 (USD236.4) million, producing a negative return on sales of 1.7%.

This was much better than K Line's negative 4.3% and Hanjin's negative 5.2%, however, perhaps reflecting a lower dependency on the container sector. In its 2009/10 financial year, MOL's container division accounted for just 34% of total Group sales, whereas K Line's reached 50%.

This meant that MOL's shareholders were confronted with a bottom line loss of JPY25,141 (USD323.4) million, whereas K Line's suffered a much bigger deficit of JPY42,166 (USD542.4) million.

MOL's management mostly blamed the economy for its poor result. Its 'considerable loss' in the container division was also blamed on rising fuel costs and too much vessel capacity chasing too little cargo, especially in east-west tradelanes. One of its solutions is to merge the New World Alliance's services (APL/HMM and MOL) with those of the Grand Alliance (Hapag-Lloyd, NYK and OOCL) between Asia and Europe in Q2 12.