BONN (dpa-AFX) - The logistics group DHL is not ruling out a further decline in profits for 2024. A broad economic recovery is still a long way off, as the company announced in Bonn on Wednesday. Only for the second half of the decade does CEO Tobias Meyer expect, in the best-case scenario, a result close to the record level of 2022. Despite a surprisingly significant drop in profits last year, shareholders are to receive an unchanged dividend. The Board of Management also intends to extend and increase the share buyback program. The DHL share nevertheless fell after the news.

In the morning, the stock was the biggest loser on the DAX, falling by around five and a half percent to EUR 39.36. The last time the share had cost less was in November. Since the turn of the year, the share price has fallen by around 11.5 percent.

For 2026, DHL CEO Meyer expects operating earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of between 7.5 and 8.5 billion euros. In the best-case scenario, the Group would exceed its record result of over EUR 8.4 billion in 2022. However, DHL's management believes that this would require an end to the destocking that many companies are undertaking due to the difficult economic situation. Transport volumes between companies should then grow again.

At the moment, however, the recovery in global trade is still sluggish. "In 2024, we will continue to face major uncertainty factors such as volatility in demand and geopolitical crises," said Meyer. For the first half of the year, he still does not expect a broad economic upturn, but rather a further decline in transport volumes in some cases.

For the second half of the year, Meyer expects global economic momentum to be more positive than in the previous year. Operating profit is expected to reach EUR 6 to 6.6 billion for the full year 2024. This means that DHL would only perform better than last year in the upper half of the range.

In 2023, DHL recorded an even sharper drop in profits than expected. The surplus plummeted by almost a third to just under 3.7 billion euros. In day-to-day business, the Bonn-based company earned a good 6.3 billion euros before interest and taxes, around a quarter less than in the record year 2022. Analysts had expected an average of more than 6.4 billion euros. Nevertheless, Swiss Post intends to pay an unchanged dividend of 1.85 euros per share.

Adjusted for one-off effects, the operating result is even more clearly below average market expectations, noted industry expert Samuel Bland from US bank JPMorgan. The one-off effects include costs for the early retirement program in the domestic mail and parcel business, as well as income from the now fully consolidated business in the United Arab Emirates.

The Bonn-based company performed weakly in all areas, wrote Bland in his initial reaction to the figures. The analysts from US analyst firm Bernstein Research pointed to a weak final quarter in the high-margin business with time-critical shipments. It again accounted for around half of the Group's operating result last year.

In a conference call with analysts, CFO Melanie Kreis reported an imbalance in trade flows. This had impaired the profitability of the express network in the fourth quarter. While the classic peak season at the end of the year was certainly noticeable in the end customer business, an improvement in the business customer segment is still a long time coming. No significant recovery in shipment volumes has been observed so far in the new year either.

On Wednesday, the management also put an end to speculation that had arisen in recent months about the takeover of Deutsche Bahn subsidiary Schenker. The Bonn-based company will not be throwing its hat into the ring. "The Schenker marriage appears to be consummated, but we are not the husband," said Group CEO Meyer in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday morning.

For DHL, the focus remains on acquisitions that could strategically complement the business, according to the Management Board's presentation at the analyst conference. For this reason, a conscious decision was made not to participate in the Schenker takeover process./lew/mis