With above-average growth rates and altogether very gratifying progress, in 2006 Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG (HHLA) has once again improved on its successful course of recent years. HHLA managed to break through two "sound barriers" with its key financial indicators. Turnover was up by 20 percent on the previous year, climbing to over one billion euros. The company anticipates an even more impressive advance in profits. An after-tax total in excess of the 100-million euro barrier is expected, following 64 million euros in 2005.
"The record year 2006 shows that the strategic measures initiated in recent years have been crowned with success. With growth rates in our divisions above the general market trends we are now reaping the fruits of the vertically integrated strategy along the transport chain from the overseas port to the customer in the hinterland," emphasizes HHLA executive board chairman Klaus-Dieter Peters. "This track record makes us an attractive proposition for the capital markets * an essential preliminary for the forthcoming part-privatization of the company."
In 2006, HHLA handled 6.1 million TEU (standard container units) at its terminals in the Port of Hamburg. That corresponds to a growth rate of 16.1 percent, being distinctly above the trend in world container transport (+11%) as well as the in northern European ports (+8.6%). HHLA's market share in the North Range (Antwerp, Rotterdam, the Bremen ports, Hamburg) has meanwhile risen to 20.4 percent * back in year 2000 it was no more than 16 percent. Last year one in five of all steel boxes passing through the North Range were therefore handled at HHLA's terminals. There was even more momentum on total output by HHLA Group in handling containers. Thanks to exceptional growth rates for the HHLA container terminals in Lübeck (+ 88%) and
Odessa (Ukraine) (+ 46%), throughput for the group as a whole increased by 18 percent to 6.6 million TEU.
HHLA intermodal transport services, especially, also made above-average progress. Transport volumes for HHLA's subsidiary and affiliate companies in hinterland traffic rose by not quite 20 percent to over 1.5 million TEU transported, outpacing the growth rate for container throughput. HHLA's train operating companies Transfracht, Metrans and Polzug, combisped with its Hamburg-Lübeck land bridge, and CTD Container-Transport-Dienst (trucking), each once again succeeded in expanding their leading positions on their respective markets.
With a double-digit advance in turnover, last year HHLA's Logistics Division - with special handling, logistics services and the international consultancy of HHLA's HPC Hamburg Port Consulting subsidiary - was also definitely in the fast lane for success. The momentum behind volumes in the special handling sector was especially gratifying. Fruit throughput jumped by more than 25 percent to almost one million tons, while vehicle throughput rose by almost 10 percent to 130,000 units and bulk goods (ore and coal) throughput rose by around 8 percent to over 14 million tons for the first time.
With 800,000 sqm of open-air logistics space and 390,000 sqm of shed space for logistics, HHLA Real Estate Division is the leader for logistics premises in the Port of Hamburg. In view of the present full occupancy, special attention is being paid to developing plots for even more intensive utilization. One example of this is O'Swaldkai: This will be modernized and expanded over the next few years in cooperation with HHLA's Unikai Lagerei und Speditionsgesellschaft and Frucht- und Kühl-Zentrum subsidiaries. Last year, HHLA set up a banana-ripening unit for the EDEKA trading company directly adjacent to the HHLA Fruit Terminal. This not only deepened the value-added element at O'Swaldkai but also enhanced the quality of the fruit logistics services. Characteristic of the sensitive structural transformation of historic Speicherstadt (Warehouse City), also owned by HHLA, was the completion of a new headquarters for the Hamburg Port Authority (HPA), which moved into
the thoroughly modernized Warehouse Block P in October 2006.
"Last year HHLA Group's performance figures and business development reflected extremely favourable progress," explains Klaus-Dieter Peters. "For this reason we have once again further topped up our already ambitious investment planning." The capacity of the three large HHLA container terminals in the Port of Hamburg, for instance, is to be increased to altogether over 12 million TEU. In the period 2007 to 2011, HHLA intends to invest altogether at least 1.2 billion euros and more than 300 million euros of this in the year 2007 alone.
Apart from anything else, HHLA's growth also benefits the job market in the entire Hamburg metropolitan region: on 31 December 2006 HHLA Group employed 4,215 staff, or 346 (9 percent) more than in the previous year.