Shipping group Maersk continues shopping spree after strong earnings Maersk container ship is loaded at a Bremerhaven port terminal in Bremerhaven.
CoPENHAGEN - Maersk announced the purchase of two e-commerce companies on Friday as the world's biggest container shipping line boosts its bet on land-based services.
Maersk handles one in five containers shipped worldwide but is looking to transform into an integrated logistics company to gain more work from existing clients such as Puma and Walmart.
It bought Visible Supply Chain Management and B2 C Europe, both specialized in e-commerce, for a combined enterprise value of $924 million.
It also confirmed a 60% jump in second quarter revenue and a more than tripled of its preliminary core profit announced in a quarterly trading statement earlier this week, when it raised its 2521 profit outlook to 32%.
The pandemic has caused shortages of container ships and logjams at ports that have sent freight rates to record levels.
The results benefited both from the strategic circumstances in Ocean, where congestion and bottlenecks continued to drive up rates, and from solid progress in executing on our exceptional transformation, CEO Soren Skou said.
The outlook for the fourth quarter is strong and we expect that the current momentum in Ocean will continue into the third quarter, he said.