The financial report published on Monday 7th August shows that all three divisions – international transport, domestic transport and insurance – continued to improve their performance on both a quarterly and half-year basis, enabling the group to post another record result.
Consolidated quarterly EBIT and profit after tax were €14.3 million and €15.1 million respectively, while EBIT and net profit for the first half of the year totalled €25.5 million.
The International Transport Segment recorded a slight decrease in revenue (-1.1%) due to falling fuel prices, but thanks to increases in the average net price level (+10%), mileage (+2%) and fleet size (+3%), the segment’s profitability continued to improve as a result of its growth, according to the financial report.
The distribution activities of the Regional Contract Logistics Segment, which serves retail chains, continue to face declining order volumes as a result of lower consumer spending, but the company is said to be compensating for this effect with the effect of reduced vehicle consumption, the filling of free warehouse capacity with new customers and logistics activities in support of production, as well as the improved performance of the container shipping segment.
The Insurance Segment continued to improve its performance due to a 16% increase in in-force business, a reduction in the specific loss ratio and a higher financial result in a favourable interest rate environment.
Based on the favourable first-half results, Waberer’s has further improved its expectations for the full year and expects to achieve an EBIT performance of EUR 40 million in 2023 (excluding the one-off positive financial impact of the out-of-court settlement with a truck manufacturer announced on 4 April 2023).
Commenting on the first half 2023 results, Zsolt Barna, President and CEO of Waberer’s International Nyrt, said:
“At the beginning of the 2023 financial year, we expected significant uncertainty regarding the potential decline in demand for logistics services due to the deterioration of the macroeconomic environment in Europe and Hungary. Taking this into account, our expectation for the 2023 financial year was that Waberer’s Group would have operated at the same level of profitability as in the previous year. The first half of the year has shown that the well-diversified activities of the Group and the segments have enabled us to focus and allocate our resources to customers who are less affected by changes in retail demand. We have also been able to win significant volumes of new business from new customers who value the high quality, customer-focused logistics services we provide.”
Barna also said that the company is working to further diversify its activities and enter market segments with further growth potential, „be it the supply chain logistics market of rail, sea or regional countries, as well as the logistics of the significantly expanding rural industrial centres in Hungary. service”.