Ceva Logistics saw growth across its main business sectors in the second quarter despite tough market conditions, with contract logistics growth the strongest since the start of 2015, the company said in its half year results.
However, exchange rate factors meant that adjusted EBITDA was down 5.6 per cent at $118 million (up 1.6 per cent at constant FX) for the first half. First half revenue was down 7.7 per cent at $3.2 billion (down 4.1 per cent at constant FX).
CEO Xavier Urbain said: “Ceva’s forward momentum continues in line with our strategy. Our half-year performance demonstrated stable net revenue in the first half driven by above-market growth in air and ocean freight and resumed growth in Contract Logistics.
“This is good progress, however we won’t stop here. As the logical next step in Ceva’s evolution, a global operational excellence program was started in April to take the organisation to the next level by simplifying and applying consistent standards and best practices across the organisation with the goal of better serving our customers. This program will also help us to deliver additional productivity improvements for all our business lines.”
Freight Management EBITDA was $30 million, reflecting a year-on-year increase of 32 per cent in constant currency. Urbain said: “We have successfully introduced a new structure for Freight Management in the US and have an experienced management team in place. With the roll-out of our One Freight System in North America, Ceva can now provide customer shipment oversight through a single, global freight management system. Our on-going investment in field sales teams led to a number of significant new business wins and renewals in the automotive, consumer & retail and technology sectors.”
Contract Logistics EBITDA was $69 million, down 8.6 per cent year-on-year in constant currency. Contract Logistics is back to top line growth due to a number of new business wins which are partially offset by low throughput in existing contracts.
