Wilh. Wilhelmsens Auto Volumes Plunge in Q1

Wilh. Wilhelmsen Norwegian rolling cargo shipping specialist Wilh. Wilhelmsen Holding (WWH) experienced a sharp decline in seaborne transportation as its auto volumes dropped 21 percent during the first quarter of 2016. The companys maritime services segment delivered a soft first quarter, partly driven by seasonality. The challenging shipping markets continuous impact on ship owners’ purchasing capabilities and as such demand for certain maritime services. In addition, the ships service area was impacted by the implementation of a new global ERP platform. The system performance and usage is improving day-by-day, and we expect this to stabilise during the second quarter, Thomas Wilhelmsen, group CEO at WWH, said. WWH delivered a total income of USD 848 million, while the operating profit ended at USD 143 million. When adjusting for non-recurring items, the total income and operating profit was down 3% and 32% quarter on quarter, indicating weaker underlying performance for the group in total. Volume growth for our car and ro-ro services is expected to remain weak. We expect the challenging shipping and offshore markets to continue to affect parts of the maritime services portfolio. All in all, we expect the underlying business in the second quarter to be in line with the first quarter, Wilhelmsen said.