The container shipping and port operations of Denmark's AP Moller-Maersk have returned to profit after significant losses last year.
The figures, for the first nine months, also marked the first time the company has published quarterly, rather than yearly and half-yearly, results.
The new openness will fuel speculation that there will be significant changes at the company under Nils Smedegaard Andersen, who took over as chief executive in November and is the first outsider to take the position in Maersk's 103-year history.
Andersen said that the change in reporting had been a joint decision of the board and management, rather than his alone.
"It's following the trend that we want to gradually make the company more open," Andersen said.
The container operations, which include Maersk Line, the world's largest container carrier, Safmarine and APM Terminals, the ports operation, made a net profit for the nine months to September of US$25 million, against a loss of $698 million for the same period last year.
The company said, however, that it still expected a small loss for the full year, against the $568 million loss for the whole of 2006.
Maersk Line and Safmarine carried 5.1 million 40-foot equivalent units of containers in the nine months, against five million FFEs for the same period last year.
Volumes on Asia-Europe routes were up 18 per cent, while volumes on transpacific routes dropped by 17 per cent.
Andersen said that the company was currently more concerned about improving internal processes and not engaging in price wars than maintaining market share. "If the question is 'are we happy with losing market share', the answer is obviously 'no'," Andersen said.
The group said it expected for the whole year it expects to make a 20 percent increase in net profit from 2006¡¯s $2.7 billion, although it would make losses of about $100 million from discontinuing operations, against none for last year.
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