Maersk, the industry giant, has disappointed in seven of its last ten financial reports and seems a bit pessimistic after a series of disappointing market hits. Maersk set itself a very low target in 2019, even lower than that set by rival herberot.
"Maersk has the lowest expectations of any of its competitors, which is very compelling and very puzzling," said Morningstar analyst Michael Field.
Maersk was very pessimistic, asking earlier: I don't know why people are so optimistic about 2019.
Compared with maersk's gloom, there are plenty of optimists. According to maersk's forecasts, consolidation demand will grow by only 1-3% in 2019, whereas Drewry and HIS, a shipping consultancy, put the figure at 4.1% to 4.7%.
Chief executive Rolf Habben Jansen is bullish on 2019, which he says will be a good year, mainly because there is not a lot of new capacity on the market.
In his view, maersk's growth forecast of just 1 per cent is impossible. He added that fuel prices and chartering rates are stable and there is less new capacity on the market than last year. So 2019 is a completely different market than 2018, so there's no need to be so pessimistic.
Sentieo, the analyst, said maersk's low growth expectations were designed to ensure a positive reaction and surprise in late 2019.
"We've set ourselves very high goals over the years, and most of them fall short, which leaves a scar on maersk, which can't control all expectations," said Tue Ostergaard, head of marketing at ABG.
It is understood that maersk shares fell 10 per cent on the day of its 2018 earnings report.
In response to questions from the outside world, maersk stressed that the reason for the group to make such a prediction is that considering many uncertainties existing in the current global economic development, the group also released the official EBITDA operating profit report in the past three quarters, which was higher than the market expectations.
Reference HKSG-GROUP
