Why NOL is still likely to struggle with orderbook problems until 2015

Spot rates have been diving sharply.

According to DBS, the Asia-Europe/ Mediterranean spot rates have nosedived at a speed we hadn’t anticipated at the start of 2013, and are currently at their lowest since early-2012.

So far, three rounds of rate increases have proved unsuccessful in 2013, as the supply glut meant capacity discipline didn’t hold much sway.

Here's more from DBS:

This has had a cascading effect on Asia-US route as well, as more liners have deployed extra ships here in recent months, and annual rate negotiations are unlikely to have positive ramifications.

With muted demand growth projections, orderbook deferrals into FY14, and some new orders still flowing from the likes of CSCL, the demand-supply outlook for FY14 doesn’t look as bright now, and we don’t think NOL will be able to achieve normalised returns before FY15.

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Book a meeting

| Or download the media kit (PDF)

240,000 senior readers quarterly in print Top 1,700 Singapore companies reached

7 markets across Southeast Asia