Impressive business results in the first quarter 2006

The global transport and logistics group Panalpina showed a very strong performance and achieved excellent results in the first three months of 2006. Continued organic growth and substantial business wins under favorable market conditions lead to increases in net forwarding revenue by 20.6% and in EBIT even by remarkable 145.3%.

Panalpina’s Chairman Gerhard Fischer speaks of “a very satisfying start into the year proving the sustained success of the company’s strategy as well as the continued trust of the customers in Panalpina’s global transport and logistics solutions.”

Panalpina Group: Results for the first quarter 2006


in million CHF	Q1 2006	Q1 2005	+ / -

Gross revenue	2 218.9	1 823.4	+ 21.7%
Net forwarding revenue	1 833.9	1 520.7	+ 20.6%
Contribution margin (gross profit)	364.0	315.9	+ 15.2%
EBITDA	50.2	27.0	+ 86.1 %
EBIT	38.3	15.6	+145.3%
Net earnings	25.6	11.6	+119.8%





Detailed Datasheet	48 Kb

Growth throughout all regions…
All of Panalpina’s regions showed a sound top-line growth in comparison to the previous year’s quarter. Net forwarding revenue went up 19.3% in Europe / Africa / Middle East / CIS, 26.0% in Asia / Pacific, 23.7% in North America and 14.9% in Central and South America. On gross profit level, too, all regions achieved a double-digit increase.

… and in all core activities
Net forwarding revenue grew in all of Panalpina’s three core activities, namely in air freight (+ 14.8%), in ocean freight (+25.8%) and in supply chain management (+26.4%). Transported volumes and tonnages clearly out-paced market growth in both air and ocean transport. Asia–Europe and Transpacific were the strongest lanes. The biggest increase achieved by the supply chain management sector once more underlines the success of Panalpina’s asset-light business model in the field of logistics services.

Strong oil and gas and hi-tech industries
The globally buoyant oil and gas supply chain business contributed to an increased profitability especially in Europe. North America continued to improve results as a consequence of the successful restructuring efforts in 2005 as well as of substantially growing volumes from the hi-tech industry.

Outlook
Panalpina is confident that business will remain healthy throughout the year as the Asian markets will keep up their extremely strong performance and the global economic outlook remains positive. In particular, the company is convinced that it will continue to profit from gradually increasing exploration efforts in the global oil and gas sector, where Panalpina is the world market leader for specialized transport and logistics solutions.

The Panalpina Group
The Panalpina Group is one of the world’s leading suppliers of forwarding and logistics services, specializing in intercontinental air freight and ocean freight shipments and associated supply chain management solutions. Thanks to its in-depth industry know-how and state-of-the-art IT systems, Panalpina provides globally integrated door-to-door forwarding solutions tailored to its customers’ individual needs. The Panalpina Group operates a close-knit network with some 500 branches in 80 countries. In a further 60 countries, it cooperates closely with selected partner companies. Panalpina employs some 13,000 people worldwide.