Earnings call transcript: Hapag-Lloyd Q2 2025 sees strong revenue growth

Hapag-Lloyd AG reported robust financial results for the second quarter of 2025, with revenue showing an 11% year-over-year increase to $10.6 billion. The company, with a market capitalization of $25.4 billion, maintains strong financial health according to InvestingPro metrics. Despite stable profits, the company’s stock price fell 6.84% following the earnings call, closing at $124.00, down from the previous day’s close of $133.10. Based on InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis, the stock appears undervalued at current levels. The market reaction may be attributed to a cautious outlook for the second half of the year and volatile U.S. trade policies.

Key Takeaways

• H1 2025 revenue increased by 11% year-over-year to $10.6 billion.
• Group profit remained stable at $775 million.
• Stock price dropped 6.84% post-earnings call, closing at $124.00.
• Updated EBITDA guidance between $2.5 billion and $4.0 billion.
• Cost-saving program targeting €1 billion by 2026.

Company Performance

Hapag-Lloyd demonstrated strong performance in the first half of 2025, with revenue growth outpacing the overall container market, which grew by 4.5%. The company’s volume growth of 11% highlights its competitive edge and effective network strategies. However, concerns about softer volumes in the latter half of the year, due to volatile trade policies, have tempered investor enthusiasm.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $10.6 billion (+11% YoY)
• Group EBIT: $677 million
• Group Profit: $775 million (stable YoY)
• Average freight rate: $1,400 per TEU (unchanged)

Market Reaction

The company’s stock price experienced a significant decline of 6.84% following the earnings announcement. The stock closed at $124.00, moving away from its 52-week high of $174.60. Trading at a P/E ratio of 8.52 and offering a substantial dividend yield of 6.14%, the stock presents notable value metrics according to InvestingPro, which has identified 12 additional key investment factors for this stock. This decline reflects investor caution due to the anticipated softer volumes and continued trade volatility, particularly in the transpacific segment.

Outlook & Guidance

Hapag-Lloyd updated its EBITDA guidance to a range of $2.5 billion to $4.0 billion, with EBIT expected between $0 and $1.5 billion. The company anticipates a moderate increase in transportation volumes but expects a decrease in freight rates. Ongoing investments in fleet modernization and terminal expansion are expected to support future growth.

Executive Commentary

CEO Rolf Habenjanssen emphasized the company’s operational reliability, stating, "We’ve delivered 90% schedule reliability every month since the start." CFO Mark Frese highlighted cost management efforts, noting, "We launched a comprehensive cost program that targets more than $1 billion in savings by 2026." These comments underscore the company’s focus on efficiency and strategic growth.

Risks and Challenges

• Volatile U.S. trade policies impacting demand.
• Expected softer volumes in the second half of 2025.
• Potential decrease in freight rates.
• Macroeconomic pressures affecting global trade.
• Execution risks related to fleet modernization and terminal expansion.

Q&A

During the Q&A session, analysts inquired about the impact of U.S. tariffs and trade policies, the company’s cost-saving program, and expectations for the second half of the year. Management addressed concerns about inventory levels and booking trends, providing reassurance about the company’s strategic initiatives and operational resilience.

Full transcript - Hapag Lloyd AG (HLAG) Q2 2025:

Youssef, Chorus Call Operator, Chorus Call: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Hapag Lloyd Analyst and Investor H1 twenty twenty five Results Conference Call and Live Webcast. My name is Youssef, the Chorus Call operator. Hapag Lloyd is represented today by Rolf Habenjanssen, CEO and Mark Frese, CFO. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen only mode and that this conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session.

The conference must not be recorded for publication or for broadcast. At this time, it’s my pleasure to hand over to Rolf Habenjanssen, CEO. Please go ahead.

Rolf Habenjanssen, CEO, Hapag-Lloyd: Thank you very much, everyone, and really appreciate you making the time available to talk to us today. Happy to take you through our half one results. Maybe let me start with a couple of highlights. I would say, by looking at the first half, we’ve seen strong volumes, good revenue growth with roughly flat freight rates compared to the first half of last year. Overall, I would say solid financial performance even if there was certainly a fair bit of we had a fair bit of operational issues.

And as expected, we had significant network transition costs as we move into Gemini. I think that phasing is now largely concluded. I think we can be really happy with the results that we have achieved so far, delivering 90% schedule reliability every month since the start. That’s probably not what a lot of people were expecting, so really good. But of course, such a transition into a very different network is complex and that means that we will definitely still do further fine tuning in the course of the second half when we also expect to start seeing the cost benefits to come in.

We’ve continued to upgrade our vessel and container fleets and we’ve also continued to invest in our terminal business that will continue to grow also over the upcoming couple of years. We narrowed our earnings outlook as we simply have six months under our belt by now and that means that we have better visibility of what’s going to happen in the second half. Looking at the market, I’d say that The U. S. Trade policies have certainly caused a fair bit of volatility both in demand and also in short term pricing, as you can also see from the graphs here on the chart.

We also would say though that in the end, the first half was probably a bit better than many people feared. When you would talk to all the analysts and economists at the beginning of the year, most people would have anticipated no or maybe even negative growth of the container market in 2025. And now we are looking at 4.5% growth after six months. I would say that that’s very positive. That also means that we now see that the forecast for the full year are being lifted.

I think a little bit closer to what we’ve said earlier because we’ve always said that we still anticipate some growth. Of course, quite some differences between the trades. Transpacific, very volatile. Initially, a bit of a rush, then a slowdown after the tariffs were announced, then a rush after there was the ninety day truth, then it settled down again. And I think when we look at the last couple of days since we see that that ninety day period has been extended, we see again a slight uptick.

On spot rates, a peak in May and June, which in our numbers you will not see very much of in Q2 as we report end of voyage, but we also saw those rates again coming down after that fairly soon. In terms of routing, we continue to go around the Cape Of Good Hope and we currently see no signs that we would be moving back to Suez before the end of this year. When we look at the latest situation on those tariffs, here is a short comparison between what did we see as initial announcements and where are we now in terms of base tariffs. I would say that in most cases, we see that those tariffs are a little bit lower with the notable exception for now of India and one that’s not on this list is Brazil. But apart from that, we see that with a number of important trading partners from The U.

S, these the tariffs are still there, but they seem to be a bit lower than initially announced. I think that’s entirely as was to be expected. I do think though that in the long run, tariffs are not good for global trade. I think we can all agree on that. But I’d also say that predictability is probably even more important than the exact level that we see.

We’ve seen a lot of people having a wait and see type of attitude over the last couple of months. And now that we have a bit more clarity on what is happening, for example, with the EU, but also with a number of other larger trading partners, I expect things to start settling down again a bit. That will not mean an immediate surge in volume. I would still expect though that when you look at, for example, the Transatlantic that now that people know what is coming towards us them and they also know that it’s not going to be some of the numbers that they maybe feared initially that we’re going to see somewhat of a recovery there. But admittedly, that still remains to be seen.

Two more charts before I hand it over to Marc on the numbers. One on Gemini, I think we can really be proud of what the teams have been doing. We’ve delivered that 90% scatter reliability every single month since we started. I don’t think there’s a lot of people that would have expected us. That’s also a key factor behind the growth that we are delivering in the first half as we simply have not lost many voyages, which typically tended to happen in the past years.

Because if you look at the weekly capacity that we intend to make available, that has not changed all that much compared to last year. But now we’re sailing it every week and we’re not blanking a ton of serves or losing them simply because of delays. Also significant improvement in on time delivery on box level. That’s something that we that will still go up further. And what’s also quite encouraging is that on the back of Gemini, we see improvements also in non Gemini services.

So that means that that lifts our performance overall. In terms of investing into our business, we continue to do that. The last four of the 24 ks ships that we had orders have been delivered. Meantime, about 40% of our existing fleet has gone through the upgrade program. We still see customers willing to buy ship green this year.

Again, significant growth compared to last year. And then the green methanol thing, I think we have announced before. If you look at where we are today, we have an order book of about 300,000 TEUs at this point in time for delivery between ’27 and ’29. We are going to do a number of methanol retrofits that fits, of course, also with the offtake agreement that we have signed in China. And when you look at the new builds that we’ve gotten into our fleet over the last couple of years and what we are going to have, you see that we are renewing the fleet as we should for a company of our size.

And with that, I’d hand it over to Marc for some comments on the numbers.

Mark Frese, CFO, Hapag-Lloyd: Yes. Good morning and thank you for joining Let me start with a short overview. In the 2025, as you can see here, we recorded strong volume growth, which outpaced the market and solid financial results. And that is despite a challenging environment and Rolf alluded on that and we will talk about that a bit.

Group EBITDA and group profit remained broadly stable compared to the prior year period. And we continue to generate robust free cash flows while investing in fleet modernization and maintaining a strong balance sheet, which ensures that we are well positioned to execute on our strategic priorities. Let us now take a closer look at the financial results. We delivered strong revenue growth of 11 reaching US10.6 billion dollars in the 2025. This solid top line performance was driven by robust volume growth across both our liner shipping and terminal segment and despite uncertainties around The U.

S. Tariff situation. Group EBIT amounted to $677,000,000 with strong revenue momentum tempered by temporarily higher costs related to port congestions and the phase in of the new Gemini network. Group profit for the 2025 came in at US775 million dollars broadly in line with the last year’s level. Looking now at the financial performance of our operating segments.

The liner shipping segment recorded revenue growth of 11% mainly driven by higher volumes and that is why the average freight rate remained stable in the 2025. Higher expenses related to operational issues in ports, the ongoing ship diversion around the Cape Of Good Hope and for sure startup costs for the new Gemini network that impacted the operating result as expected. Despite this challenging market environment, liner shipping posted an EBIT of $639,000,000 In second quarter, our growth momentum accelerated further with transport volume exceeding 3,400,000 TEU. For the first half, volumes rose by 11% due to more than 6,700,000 TEU and that is significantly outpacing overall market growth. This performance is particularly notable given the tariff related demand fluctuations we have to navigate through.

The strong growth is a direct result of our sustained investment in fleet capacity and the successful transition to the new Gemini East West network, which delivers a compelling value proposition for our customers. Growth was particularly strong on the Pacific and Asia Europe trade routes. On The Atlantic, volumes between Europe and North America increased moderately, while growth between Latin America and Europe, as you can see, was constrained by operational disruptions in ports. And the overall average freight rate for the first half stood at US1400 dollars per TEU, which is virtually unchanged compared to the prior year period. However, we have to say the trend within the year differed markedly to 24%.

The downward trend pressure on freight rates persisted into Q2, resulting in a sequential decline of 11% to US1324 dollars per TEU. For Q3, we expect this trend to reverse due to higher spot freight rates at the end of last quarter with a positive effect on at least Q3. Coming to unit cost in the 2025, they increased by 4% to US1320 dollars This increase was driven by higher storage cost per container and that is the result of port congestions, operational delays, higher hinterland transportation costs due to a growing share of door to door business and the planned start up investments associated with the Gemini network. These cost increases are transitional. The reshuffling of alliances combined with highly volatile demand from The U.

S. Has added to operational challenges for both carriers and ports. At the same time, we fully acknowledge that rolling out an entirely new network structure in this market environment is a complex task and that certain startup costs were unavoidable. While GEMINI phase in now is completed, we have turned our attention to further fine tune the network and delivering cost efficiency. In addition, we have launched a comprehensive cost program that targets more than $1,000,000,000 in savings by the 2026.

And this program will extend across the entire haplogleid network and will include the synergies and efficiency gains already anticipated from the Gemini Corporation. Furthermore, we will also streamline our non Gemini network focusing even more on procurement excellence and review our SG expenses. The terminal business delivered good revenue and profit growth in the first half of this year supported by higher throughput driven by robust overall demand and additional volumes resulting from the transition to Gemini. The performance also benefited from the terminal, the new terminal in Tutikorin in Southeast India and the acquisition of our new terminal in Lehavir. The improving operational performance together with the gradual realization of synergies with our liner business was partly offset by ongoing ramp up costs associated with this new business segment.

And as we said, it’s our ambition to develop Handiarty Global Terminal, our terminal brand into one of the leading global terminal operators and that has some investments as a consequence. Over the next five years, we aim to expand our portfolio from the current 21 terminals to a total of at least 30 terminals. For this reason, Handejati Global Terminals has established its first regional headquarters in Santiago in Chile on the August 1, which will serve as the operational hub for both North And South America. In addition, we expect the new terminal in Damietta in Egypt to commence operations by the end of this year and become our twenty second terminal participation. Now jumping over to the cash flow development.

Operating cash flow for the first half of twenty twenty five amounted to $1,800,000,000 At the same time, we invested around about $1,300,000,000 mostly in vessels and containers as well as the modernization of our existing fleet under the fleet upgrade program. These investments are aimed at enhancing cost efficiency increase, reducing CO2 emissions especially and emissions across our operations. And I can tell you payback times are short. Income from interest, dividends and divestments generated a cash inflow of US200 million dollars The total cash outflow from investment amounted to US1.1 billion dollars As you can see, as a result, free cash flow amounted to over US700 million dollars And following the approval at the AGM, we distributed more than $1,600,000,000 to our shareholders. Including debt intake and interest payments of a combined 500,000,000.0 total financing cash outflows reached 2,200,000,000 At the end of Q2 twenty twenty five, the cash position amounted to $4,200,000,000 As usual, I would like to conclude now my remarks with a brief outlook at our key balance sheet metrics.

Mainly due to the lower cash position following the dividend distribution in May and investing activities, net debt increased to $900,000,000 we continued to maintain substantial liquidity reserve, which includes cash and fixed income investments and undrawn revolving credit facilities that in total amounts to $7,100,000,000 And with this strong liquidity reserve, which provides us with ample flexibility to fund our strategic initiatives and to navigate effectively through periods of market volatility, we are very well equipped. And having said that, I hand it back now to Rolf for a market update and our outlook. Thank you.

Rolf Habenjanssen, CEO, Hapag-Lloyd: Thank you. Thanks, Marc. Yes, a few words on market and supply and demand. As I said earlier, think in the end this year is going to turn out better than many people thought initially. Having said that, we do expect that growth will slow down in the second half of the year as we do see higher tariffs than people had faced last year.

And normally that doesn’t really help. I believe also a lot of people have been in a wait and see type of mode. But still also in historical perspective, 3% annual growth is more or less what one should expect in this industry. So all in all, actually a better year than expected. When we look at the supply side of things, we see that vessel deliveries this year are clearly lower than they were last year.

And also in 2026, those deliveries will be less than we had in 2023 and 2024. And then I think on the right hand side, when you look at the capacity that’s older than twenty five years, one should assume that between now and 2020 in 02/1930, but already between now and the end of twenty twenty seven, there’s going to be fairly considerable scrapping because we see that an increasing number of ships are just becoming older than twenty five years. And as you can see on the bottom, in normal years, so I would say pre COVID, we saw that the average age at which ships get scrapped or recycled is below twenty five years. And as such, I think it’s a pretty realistic assumption to think that until twenty seven, twenty twenty eight, we’ll see quite a bit of scrapping, which also means that the net increase of ships on the water when you look at ’25, but especially ’26 and ’27 is probably not all that crazy when you look at the global fleet. And what happens beyond that, I think that remains to be seen.

The global fleet is still or the order book is still at a relatively high level, but let’s not forget that at the moment this order book covers a significantly longer period than it normally did. And we have significantly more older ships. So yes, one can certainly argue that it’s a little bit on the high side, but it is nowhere near comparable to what we have seen in the past. Then before I wrap things up, maybe a few words on our outlook. I think when we look at outlook, there’s a few things where we have made some changes.

I think on transportation volume, in view of a somewhat softer second half of the year, we believe now that that transport volume will increase moderately. We do expect that also at the end of the year, will grow significantly ahead of market on the back of a strong first half, but I would expect that also to see something similar compared to market in the second half. Freight rate, we expect still that that’s going to decrease moderately. First half was more or less online, but whereas last year we saw the trend as increasing. If you look today at it on a start up shipment basis, we see that since the spike that we saw in May and June, tariffs have short term tariffs have started to erode.

Bunker price looks lower at this point in time than the last time we looked at it. And because we have six months under our belt, we, in essence, narrow the outlook from where we used to be. In U. S. Dollars, you can see we go from 2,500,000,000.0 to $4,000,000,000 on EBITDA to 2,800,000,000.0 to 3,800,000,000.0 And in EBIT, we go from zero to 1,500,000,000 to 250,000,000.00 plus to $1,250,000,000 So quite a logical step, think, at this period in the year, but in essence, confirms what we saw also earlier.

Priorities for us for the next for the remainder of this year, but also for next year. First of all, focus on further fine tuning of the Gemini network and make sure that we continue to deliver that schedule reliability day in, day out. Maintain the high customer satisfaction. Get good scores since quite a long time from all of our customers and make sure that we remain focused on that to deliver that day in, day out. We’ll keep focusing on growing our terminal business, actively working on all kinds of things.

And hopefully, we’ll be able to show some results of that either in the second half of this year or beginning of next year. We’ll continue to invest in making our teams better. And that means we invest in training, but also definitely in the use of modern technology and data. And then finally, of course, with a market as volatile as it is today, we need to remain vigilant and make adjustments if and when that is required and we will continue to do so as we also put more and more emphasis on this competitive cost structure, which is a point that Marc also made a little earlier, certainly one of the priorities for us over the next twelve to eighteen months. And with that, I would hand it over to you and we’ll be happy to take any questions that you may have.

Youssef, Chorus Call Operator, Chorus Call: We will now begin the question and answer session. Our first question comes from Omar Nokta, Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Omar Nokta, Analyst, Jefferies: Thank you. Good morning. Rolf, Mark, thank you for the update. Appreciate the detail. Just a couple of questions for me, maybe just as a follow-up to your commentary on industry volumes, which you expect to moderate here in the second half.

3% perhaps you mentioned is normal for the industry. Your volumes were up obviously 10% in the first half. Are you thinking also for half ag, 3% is realistic for the second half? Is that what you’re anticipating for the business?

Rolf Habenjanssen, CEO, Hapag-Lloyd: I mean, I expect the second half to be lower. I mean, I’m not entirely sure what your question is. The way I understood it is what do you expect to see as industry growth. I expect that the full year will probably land somewhere around that 3%. That would mean that second half is, of course, a little bit weaker.

When you look when your question is what do you expect as volume for APAC, then I expect that to be lower than the 11% that we delivered in the first half, but I would also still expect it to be a bit higher than the 3% that we see for the entire industry across the board.

Omar Nokta, Analyst, Jefferies: Okay. Yes. So that just wanted to be clear, yes, more on it was not that you’re going to grow with in line with industry volumes, you still expect to outpace it, but just not to the same degree as in the first half?

Rolf Habenjanssen, CEO, Hapag-Lloyd: Correct.

Omar Nokta, Analyst, Jefferies: Okay. And then maybe just another just follow-up. Obviously, Gemini is now up and running. You’ve been achieving 90% reliability fairly consistently. You also said that there’s still a few things left to do to optimize the network.

Can you expand perhaps on what those would be and how that would affect or improve the network further?

Rolf Habenjanssen, CEO, Hapag-Lloyd: Yes. I mean, for us, it’s been a big network change. I think in fairness, the structure of the network, I think the change was probably for us a little bit bigger than for Maersk also because we changed a lot of terminals. And you simply need to get used to that different mode of working. And I think we see week in, week out that things are getting better.

It’s probably just that we still see a lot of further improvement potential at this point in time. And that’s why I think that you will see improvements in Q3, further improvements in Q4, but probably still more in Q1 and Q2 of next year as well. I mean, it’s just a fundamentally different way of working compared to what we did in the past. And that means that you just uncover new things that you can do better almost every day. And we also see it in indicators that we look at on a daily basis.

Omar Nokta, Analyst, Jefferies: Yes. Okay. Thank you. I’ll pass it back.

Youssef, Chorus Call Operator, Chorus Call: Our next question comes from Christian Nedelco, UBS.

Christian Nedelco, Analyst, UBS: Hi. Thank you very much for taking my questions. The first one, if I may ask you on the unit cost performance. If we exclude the bunker, I think in Q2 your unit costs were up somewhere around high single digits year over year despite some maybe operating positive operating leverage from higher volumes. You’ve alluded to some of the reasons behind the higher cost, but could you help us a bit visualize the contribution of how much of that extra cost was the Gemini?

How much were congestion costs or other costs that led to that development? So if you could offer a bit more clarity there. Also on the cost savings, the €1,000,000,000 cost savings until the 2026, Roughly, could you give us a bit of a split? How much of that is Gemini versus the rest of the network? I believe Gemini represents around 60% of your deployed capacity.

So should we use that to split also the cost or if you can offer more? And the last one, you allow me, just I guess as we go into Q3, you flagged the higher sequential freight rates that are helping the Gemini benefits, which are also helping sequentially. Is it fair to assume that the Q3 EBITDA should start to see a more meaningful increase versus the Q2 EBITDA level? Thank you.

Rolf Habenjanssen, CEO, Hapag-Lloyd: Let me try and take them one by one. I think when you look at unit cost, think there’s basically three effects that play a role there. One is indeed the or basically it’s four effects. One of them is the transition cost indeed, which I think in our case was fairly significant and that was definitely a 3 digit million dollars figure looking at it in U. S.

Dollars. I think the second element that plays a role when you look at unit cost, but that’s more the way we calculate it is that we’ve significantly grown our share of carrier haulage and that has also an effect on unit cost. The third effect is indeed, as you say, congestion. I think the fourth effect is that when as we are growing into the new network, we have certainly had some trades and some ship systems where the utilization was as planned a little bit lower than normal and that is something that will take us also a couple of quarters to get that up. That has actually a fairly sizable effect.

As far as the saving, I mean to split that between Gemini and the rest of the network is actually not all that easy. Because on the one hand, we have network effects that are related to Gemini, which I think we in the past have also indicated as being $350,000,000 or $400,000,000 Once we are on full run rate, we still expect to deliver that as from 2026. There are, of course, some other savings that are also directly and indirectly related to that when it’s around productivity, some of the stuff around terminal handling and also some other categories. But if you would want to look at what if it is directly linked to Gemini, then I would still stick to the number that we had before plus probably some, yes? But there’s clearly also a lot of things that we do in other areas.

So I mean, if you would assume a fifty-fifty type of split of, in the end, euros 1,000,000,000 or a little bit more than that, then you’re not that far off. Then when you look at Q3, then you say sequential freight rates should indeed be somewhat up. You look at Q3, whether in the end that will result in a significantly higher EBITDA, I think that that remains to be seen to be honest because we also have some effects that will actually impact us in Q3 in a different way. So I would still expect that Q2 is going to be at least at the sorry, Q3 is going to be at least at the level of Q2, yes, possibly a bit better, but that’s probably all we can see at this point in time.

Christian Nedelco, Analyst, UBS: Thank you very much.

Youssef, Chorus Call Operator, Chorus Call: Our next question comes from Alexia Dijani, JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Alexia Dijani, Analyst, JPMorgan: Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Just going back to the previous question, can you discuss what are the effects that impact you a different way, just to kind of understand what we need to be thinking here? Then on the cost program, is that cost program going to be enough to bring back unit costs closer to pre COVID levels? I think last time you showed a very helpful chart that basically demonstrates there has been a lot of inflation that has led to a permanent increase in your main cost components.

I guess is the EUR 1,000,000,000 cost out enough to bring you back to more competitive levels? And is there any costs that you think are more transient and let’s say over the next couple of years will get repriced if I think about charter rates or any other cost items? That would be quite helpful to understand. And then finally on the scrapping opportunity, clearly, is a finite scrap yard capacity annually. What do you think that number is?

And are you seeing investments in that area that could accelerate the scope for scrapping in future years? Thanks.

Rolf Habenjanssen, CEO, Hapag-Lloyd: Well, think initially, was asked to give a comment on Q3, yes? I think when I look at Q3, I think that the underlying performance in Q3 will be better than in Q2. In Q2, we had a couple of favorable one offs, which we will not have in Q3. So I think that’s mainly the delta between one and the other. When you look at the cost saving program, I don’t think we’re going to get back to pre COVID levels for the very simple reason that some of our factor costs are simply very different.

We did not have EU ETS before COVID. We did not have low sulfur fuel. Those alone will drive up costs quite significantly. And then there has been inflation that impacts our cost as well. And you certainly cannot negotiate that away.

We put ourselves a target to bring unit cost down in a double digit percentage versus what we saw actually in 2022. I think that is achievable. I also believe that this €1,000,000,000 or €1,000,000,000 plus is realistic to get that out until the end of next year, but that will not bring us back to 2019 levels. I think also anyone who believes that freight rates should go back to that level, it’s just not going to happen because we see EU EPS, we see low sulfur fuel, we see the prices of shipyards having gone up significantly also investments that need to be done for newer ships. We see more congestion as such.

We turn the boxes slower, many factors that we will not be able to manage away. Last question on recycling capacity. I’m with you that there is significantly more capacity needed in the upcoming years compared to what we saw in the last few years. I do see a lot more activity from people that are considering investments in that space. Not that many projects that have already been executed, but I do expect that we are going to see more investment in that space within the next twelve twenty four months.

Alexia Dijani, Analyst, JPMorgan: Thank you, Rolf. And can I just explore a little bit the point of rates will not go back to pre pandemic levels? I mean, clearly, they did in 2023. What do you think has changed in the past two years that makes us more confident they won’t go back to those levels?

Rolf Habenjanssen, CEO, Hapag-Lloyd: They didn’t go back to pre pandemic levels in 2023. Yet in Q4, there were a couple of trades where we saw very low spot rates for a four to six week period. And that could also still happen in the future. I’m not ruling that out. I’m just saying in the somewhat longer run and we’ve also seen that even in the periods where we were pre pandemic, then rates will always tend to land somewhere a little bit above cost.

And the base cost today for all of the liner companies is simply a lot higher than what it was pre pandemic. And as such, I cannot see a scenario where for a longer period of time, it can always be for a quarter or maybe even two quarters, but for a longer period of time, those rates are going to hover at a level that is 10% or 20% below the cost that everybody incurs.

Alexia Dijani, Analyst, JPMorgan: Thank you.

Youssef, Chorus Call Operator, Chorus Call: Our next question comes from Ulrik Back, Danske Bank. Please go ahead.

Ulrik Back, Analyst, Danske Bank: Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Just if you could provide a status of the bookings currently and whether you have seen an impact following the extension of The U. S.-China tariff truth just the other day. And also, if you could provide your impression of the inventory level at the moment.

Is it high? Is it low? I think we hear different things depending on which company you follow. And then also to your comments about softer volumes in H2, H2, do you think that will be broad based or just on certain trade lanes? I mean Asia Europe growth has been quite strong in H1.

Do you also expect this trade lane to soften in H2? Thank you.

Rolf Habenjanssen, CEO, Hapag-Lloyd: Maybe first point on current bookings. I mean since these ninety day period was extended for ninety days, certainly in the first couple of days of this week, we’ve seen somewhat stronger bookings from Asia to The U. S. Or from China to The U. S.

And in particular, how much of a mini rush that is, I think that remains to be seen. It’s a bit early to say that. But we’ve certainly seen an uptick in bookings. Inventory levels, I mean, there’s mixed, I think, views on that. I would not think that inventory levels are excessively high at this point in time based on the conversations that we have, but I also don’t think that they are excessively low.

So I think they’re actually pretty normal. We saw them running really low when everybody paused their imports from China, especially into The U. S. That’s also why we saw that mini rush in May, June after that volumes have come back to more normal levels. So I think it’s not very likely that inventories are very low at this point in time.

When you look at softer volume, I personally think that’s going to be a little bit across the board. But of course, probably a bit the trades into The U. S. Are probably going to be impacted a little bit more than some others. And whether that’s going to be Atlantic or Trans Pacific or also, for example, trades from Brazil, I think all of them will be hit to some extent.

Because in the end, it’s the tariffs, but let’s also not forget that the U. S. Dollar is also a lot weaker and that in reality adds actually some percentage points to the tariffs for U. S. Importers.

And as the dollar has weakened about 10% compared to what this is eight, nine months ago, I mean, that’s not immaterial.

Omar Nokta, Analyst, Jefferies: Thank you.

Youssef, Chorus Call Operator, Chorus Call: Our next question is a follow-up question from Christian Adelco, UBS. Please go ahead.

Christian Nedelco, Analyst, UBS: Thank you very much for allowing me to come back. Maybe two questions. If we zoom in on Asia to North Europe, if we’re looking at the rate, we saw a strong increase in June, resilient July. I think the SCFIS is still 50% higher today than it was in Q2, so very strong performance. But the last few weeks, we’ve been seeing the quotes coming down from most of the ocean carriers.

So we were starting to see some pressure on the rates there. Could I ask you what do you think is driving this? Is it as simple as the more incremental capacity sequentially added on this lane that is causing a bit the quotes to weaken? Or is it demand softening a little bit? There was strong demand.

We saw the CTS volumes in May, and there was strong demand for Asia Europe, but maybe that’s slowing down a bit. Do you have a bit more visibility there? You could help us into August and September. And the second question on the USTR, The U. S.

Port fees expected to start in October. I believe they don’t have direct implications for you. But indirectly, as some of the carriers may need to reshuffle capacity deployment to to the Trans Pacific in a meaningful way, the Chinese carriers. Do you believe there could be consequences for the freight rates post October on the Trans Pacific and indirectly on other lanes as capacity is reshuffled? Thank you.

Rolf Habenjanssen, CEO, Hapag-Lloyd: I mean the last one, I mean that’s at the moment pure speculation. I mean I don’t have a crystal ball unfortunately. Think that for the industry, impact of USTR three zero one will be very manageable. So I expect that in the end that will not have a massive impact on trade. It will be a little bit more difficult for one or two carriers, but I’m sure that they will somehow also find a way to manage that.

For us, the impact is zero. When you look at Asia North Europe rates, yes, they have been fairly strong and yes, they have been coming down. To be very honest, I think that’s quite normal in this period of the year. Sometimes the peak season is ending a little bit early. It looks right now that we don’t see a very strong peak running up to the September, but you never know.

Sometimes it also comes later. So these things that we are we’ve learned over the last couple of years that these things can be very unpredictable. As you said, I think volumes into Europe have been pretty steady and I think they still are. Bookings are still robust. We just now need to see what’s going to happen in the upcoming couple of weeks.

It’s not that a lot of capacity has been added or that a lot of capacity has been removed. So I would say that’s just a fairly normal fluctuation. In the last couple of weeks, the fluctuations have also been less than they were before.

Christian Nedelco, Analyst, UBS: Thank you very much.

Youssef, Chorus Call Operator, Chorus Call: Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. This concludes today’s Q and A session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Rolf Harben Janssen for the closing remarks.

Rolf Habenjanssen, CEO, Hapag-Lloyd: Thank you very much and well thanks everybody for taking the time to listen to us today. We very much appreciate it and hopefully that was informative or maybe even insightful for you in some points. Thank you very much.

Youssef, Chorus Call Operator, Chorus Call: Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.

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