Ana CanteroRos, Alexander Kloss

(Reuters) – Kuehne + Nagel, a Swiss logistics company reported Tuesday a 162% increase in net earnings for its quarter one. This was due to strong consumer demand and capital.

Although its logistic volumes were barely affected – sea freight fell 4%, and air cargo was up by 3% organically, quarterly earnings reached 832 million Swiss Francs ($869.20m), an increase of 318 million from a year earlier. EBIT also increased 160% to 1.12 billion Swiss francs.

The freight forwarding firm benefited from high levels of demand, capacity restrictions on freight and air cargo and difficulties in shipping sea cargo after Russia invaded Ukraine. This helped to drive up margins.

While the Swiss Group expects little change in consumers’ behaviours and order volume during the first semester 2022, it declined to give any guidance. Markus Blanka-Graff, Chief Financial Officer of the Swiss Group stated in a conference phone call that the group does not have any forecasts.

Detlef Trefzger, chief executive officer, said that the company believes it is possible for full year results to exceed or be in line with previous years.

The group had all its business units exceed their previous year figures, and Q1 EBIT for sea logistics was almost half the turnover. This segment accounted for more than three times the amount of 621 million Swiss Francs.

This is despite the fact that container volume dropped to 1,000,000 twenty-foot equivalent units, (TEUs), from 1.1million previously. There has also been congestion at Shanghai’s biggest seaport, which continues to cause problems. The company stated that the extremely high operating workload was due to the market turmoil once more.

The shares fell by 3.2% as investors were concerned about how long the special transport and logistic operator’s situation will continue.

Nevertheless, analyst sentiment remains optimistic.

Morningstar stated that they believe it is important to diversify supply chains to source components and products from different regions. This will bring long-lasting advantages to large and capable third-party logistic firms such as Kuehne+Nagel.

($1 = 0.9572 Swiss francs)

(Gdansk NewsroomEditing by Paul Simao)