Bruce Barnard, Special Correspondent | Mar 08, 2012 9:38AM EST
Germany’s Deutsche Post DHL, coming off a year in which net profit fell by half because of a onetime charge related to the sale of its Postbank banking unit, forecast higher revenue and profit for 2012.
Revenue in 2011 increased 2.8 percent — 5.9 percent when adjusted for currency fluctuations — to $69 billion and operating earnings of $3.1 billion were up almost a third.
Excluding the charges related to the Postbank sale, net profit increased more than 50 percent from 2010.
DHL continued to drive earnings growth, with the express unit’s operating profit surging 55 percent to $2.2 billion, outpacing the freight and supply chain businesses.
Overall express profit surged 85.5 percent to $1.2 billion as revenue climbed 5.9 percent to $15.5 billion. The global forwarding unit’s profit grew 12 percent to $562 million on 4.9 percent revenue growth to $19.6 billion. Supply chain revenue was 1.2 percent higher at $8.5 billion and earnings jumped 56.7 percent to $474 million.
2011 was “a very good year for our group,” Deutsche Post CEO Frank Appel said. “We hit all of our targets, made very good progress with the implementation of our Strategy 2015 and further bolstered the already very strong platform for a sustainable expansion of our earnings in the future.”
Deutsche Post forecast 2012 operating earnings of $3.3 billion to $3.4 billion, with DHL contributing about $2.5 billion. Net profit, it said, will “improve in line with the operating business.”
The company also expects the positive earnings trend to extend beyond the current fiscal year as the mail division stabilizes while operating earnings at DHL likely will grow 13 to 15 percent through 2015.
Contact Bruce Barnard at brucebarnard47@hotmail.com.
