Panalpina sees profit jump 109% in 1st quarter

Panalpina sees profit jump 109% in 1st quarter Swiss forwarding and logistics group Panalpina’s first quarter net income more than doubled to CHF53.4 million ($43.9 million) compared to CHF25.6 million in the same period a year ago.
   Panalpina’s earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) increased 93.9 percent to CHF74.2 million ($60.9 million) while gross revenue improved 9.2 percent to CHF2.42 billion ($1.99 billion).
   Net forwarding revenue gained 6.6 percent to CHF1.95 billion ($1.60 billion), which Panalpina said would have been higher but for external factors such as rate development, lower fuel surcharges and, in the case of North America, negative currency impacts.
   “Our solid performance and continued efforts to further improve profitability met with a soaring demand from global markets, culminating in March to become so far the strongest month in the company’s history,” said Chief Executive Monika Ribar. “These very satisfying figures, which are even above our expectation, were positively impacted by an overall growth of customer business, the full deployment of business wins already contracted in 2006 and 2007 and a very favorable development of project-related business.”
   Panalpina’s net air freight turnover grew 25 percent to CHF922 million ($757.3 million) while ocean freight revenue went up 6.1 percent to CHF724 million ($594.6 million) and supply chain management revenue improved 24.2 percent to CHF309 million ($253.8 million).
   On a regional basis, net forwarding revenue in the Europe/Africa/Middle East/CIS market showed the strongest growth, up 22.7 percent to CHF1.14 billion ($936.3 million), followed by North America, which improved 17 percent to CHF401 million ($329.3 million). Revenue for the Asia/Pacific market improved 14.8 percent to CHF242 million ($198.8 million) while Central and South America grew 6.1 percent to CHF174 million ($142.9 million).
   The company expressed a positive outlook for the remainder of 2007. “With this strong start to the year, Panalpina is very confident in meeting its targets for 2007. The group expects further solid growth as economies keep developing strongly on a global scale and fuel the demand for worldwide transport and logistics services,” Panalpina said.
   The latest quarterly figures were the last under the chairmanship of Gerhard Fischer, who is retiring from the company after 42 years. Fischer will hand over to Chairman Designate Rudolf W. Hug on May 15 after Panalpina’s annual general meeting.