Danish shipping giant forced into profit warning as Chinese — AP Moller-Maersk

The Copenhagen-based group which controls the world’s largest container shipping company Maersk Line, said market conditions worldwide had been weaker than expected.

According to the group’s sensitivity guidance for the second half of 2015, a general decline in the freight rate of 100 USD/FFE (forty-foot equivalent unit) will impact Maersk Line’s result negatively by around 0.5 billion USA dollars, and that a volume reduction of 100,000 FFE will have a negative impact of around 0.1 billion US dollars.

Maersk, the Danish shipping and oil firm, said it will probably make $600m (£389m) less profit than previously thought, as global demand dropped.

In the third quarter Maersk Line’s average freight rate was $2,163 per feu compared to $2,679 per feu in the same period a year earlier.

Routes between Asia and Europe have been particularly weak, with Bloomberg Intelligence explaining that the World Container Index had hit a record low for a third consecutive week, with two of the eight biggest world trade lanes at all-time lows.

On Monday, at high-level talks in Beijing, an economic blueprint for the next five years will be drawn up.

The profit downgrade in Maersk’s shipping business shouldn’t frighten investors away, according to Goldman Sachs. The group now expects an underlying result from Maersk Line of around $1.6-billion.

On Thursday, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi said the moribund single currency bloc may need a fresh round of stimulus before the end of year as the global slowdown threatens the fragile recovery.