Dr. Thomas Knecht und Jost Hellmann

Hellmann Worldwide Logistics: Further increase in group result

The Hellmann Group closes the 2017 financial year with earnings before taxes (EBT) of 22.2 million EUR. Thus, the company increased its previous year's result of 16.1 million EUR by a total of 37 percent. In addition, the logistics service provider based in Osnabrück increased consolidated sales by 8.2 percent to 2.5 billion EUR in the past fiscal year. Overall, the group generated total sales of more than 3.2 billion EUR (+ 7 percent compared to the previous year).

The group's positive earnings development is based on the stringent restructuring of recent years. In addition to operational and financial measures,  Hellmann made important structural adjustments to the overall organization. In particular, the formation of the three business units in Germany and the change of legal form to an SE & Co. KG represent key milestones that were successfully implemented last year.

A significant increase in volumes within the individual product divisions also contributed to the positive result. Global consignments in air freight and land transport rose by 11.6 percent and 3.5 percent respectively in 2017. With more than 557,000 tons of air freight volume handled and almost 17 million land transport consignments, the company has significantly expanded its core business areas. The Contract Logistics division also developed positively with an increase in gross profit of around 8 percent. Due to global economic conditions, sea freight developed volatile throughout the industry in the past year. In this challenging environment, the Hellmann Group has succeeded in maintaining its market position.

"With an increase of 37 percent over the previous year, we were once again able to significantly increase consolidated earnings in 2017. We have thus achieved a solid and sustained positive development over the past two years, but have not yet reached the end of the road. Our goal is to further expand our market position globally in all product areas and to continue to develop earnings positively in the coming years," says Dr. Thomas Knecht, Chief Executive Officer of Hellmann Worldwide Logistics.

 "The logistics industry is developing rapidly. Changing customer requirements are as much a driver of change as are the many technological innovations. We have realigned the Hellmann Group over the past few years and created a good basis for actively shaping this change and emerging from it stronger," says Jost Hellmann, Chief Commercial Officer of Hellmann Worldwide Logistics.