Overall View

The economic environment remained challenging throughout 2016. In addition to the dredging of the lower and outer stretches of the river Elbe, which has still not been commenced, HHLA suffered in particular from modest global economic growth, weak world trade and a constant low growth in global container throughput. Despite these challenging conditions, HHLA’s performance over the course of 2016 was increasingly encouraging. There was a slight increase in container throughput at HHLA’s terminals as well as strong growth in container transport. These trends in HHLA’s two largest segments are also reflected in the moderate increase in revenue and the operating result at Group level.

One-off expenses incurred over the course of the year for the now-completed restructuring of the Logistics segment, which were initially included in EBIT guidance in the prior-year report – were largely offset by an unplanned one-off effect from the termination of the lease for the Übersee-Zentrum in the third quarter of 2016. Due to this effect and the positive volume trend in the Container and Intermodal segments over the course of the year, HHLA upgraded its earnings guidance for the Group during the year. Actual performance now confirms the guidance last updated in autumn 2016. HHLA continued to scale its capital expenditure programme to actual needs. Delays to individual projects resulted in postponements until 2017 and thus a deviation from the forecast figure.

HHLA’s financial position remained stable as of the balance sheet date of 31 December 2016. Changes in capital structure resulted in part from negative effects from valuation adjustments to pension provisions triggered by interest rate differentials. The equity ratio declined by 1.7 percentage points to 31.5 % (previous year: 33.2 %) and the gearing ratio decreased slightly from 2.7 to 2.6. Due to the company’s liquidity base as of the balance sheet date, it still has no significant refinancing requirements.