Kuwait-based global forwarder Agility Logistics finished 2014 on a positive note, thanks largely to continued growth in contract logistics across the Middle East and Asia, the company said.
Agility’s full-year 2014 financial results included a net income of US$168.6 million, a 10 percent increase from the previous year. Net revenue was $1.30 billion, a 1 percent increase.
Tarek Sultan, Agility’s vice chairman and chief executive, said the 2014 results continued a three-year pattern of “steadily grown bottom-line profitability” that he expected to continue by “focusing on strengthening [our] operating platform, maintaining financial discipline, and focusing on high-growth markets, products and verticals.”
Overall 2014 revenue for Agility’s Global Integrated Logistics (GIL) arm fell by 6 percent to $3.53 billion, compared to 2013, which Sultan said was due to “both general economic volatility and the winding down of major project logistics contracts held by Agility in countries like Australia and Papua New Guinea.” However, GIL’s net revenue rose slightly by 1 percent in 2014, with margins expanding from 21.8 percent in 2013 to 23.4 percent last year.
Regarding its Middle East and Asia operations, Agility said it had opened several new facilities, improved warehouse occupancy and saw rising cargo volumes in those regions from existing and new customers. In addition, “Agility’s airfreight yields improved in 2014, offsetting some of the continued margin pressure on the ocean freight side,” Sultan said.
One of the next goals for Agility will be to seek new opportunities in emerging markets, which “include accelerating our expansion on the African continent.”
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