The A. P. Moller Group experienced yet another eventful year in 2023, with a sharp drop in container freight rates, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, drought curtailing Panama Canal transits, coupled with elevated interest rates and inflation in some of the Group’s most important markets. At the end of the year, Houthi attacks on the global merchant fleet in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, in the vicinity of the Red Sea, forced seaborne trade to circumvent the Suez Canal and sail south of the Cape of Good Hope, adding more than 13,000 km to a round trip voyage from Shanghai to Rotterdam.

The Group concluded 2023 with revenue of DKK 389bn (USD 56bn), EBITDA of DKK 72bn (USD 10bn), a net result of DKK 35bn (USD 5bn), and consolidated assets of DKK 740bn (USD 110bn).

During the year, the parent company of the Group, A. P. Moller Holding, pursued investments and add-on acquisitions across its segments ‘public markets’, ‘principal holdings’, ‘growth equity’, and ‘scale-ups’. The principal and growth equity portfolio investments remain centred around the investment themes ‘global trade’, ‘the energy transition’, ‘circularity, water & waste recovery’, and ‘demographic & societal change’.

At the end of 2023, A. P. Moller Holding was debt free, with a full year cash inflow of DKK 43bn (USD 6bn). The net asset value increased 8% to DKK 214bn (USD 32bn), mainly driven by a strong rebound of Danske Bank and Noble and with the public markets portfolio DKK 46bn (USD 7bn) recording a 16% return for the year.