Both its A and B shares showed gains north of 7% in the hours after its second quarter profit of$1.08bn cruised past market expectations of $846m.
Analysts at DNB Markets say three of Maersk’s four core divisions, Maersk Line, Maersk Drilling and Maersk Oil, produced better than forecast figures.
Maersk Line recorded an adjusted profit of $1.099bn for the quarter, ahead of the $797m consensus, Nicolay Dyvik, Oyvind Berle and Petter Haugen said.
Frode Morkedal, an analyst at Clarksons Platou Securities, said his first read of Maersk Line’s report was a relief.
He says the recapturing of volumes and good cost controls lead to the company beating forecasts hands down.
“Our reading is that Maersk Line did win the price war, as they aggressively cut prices to recapture market share and is now in a much better footing with utilisation back to ‘normal’, according to our calculations,” he said.
Further positives came at group level as AP Moller kept its forecast of an underlying result of around $4bn for the year, defying fears that it could be reduced.
At the time of writing today, AP Moller’s A shares were up 7.11% at DKK 12,360 each and its B shares were changing hands at DKK 12.770 ($1,901) each, a boost of 7.22%.
