DSV has withdrawn its 2020 guidance of USD 1.1 billion as the coronavirus outbreak is heavily affecting the company’s income. In February, the result was already USD 21 million below budget and with the virus now quickly spreading through Europe, the impact in March is likely to be worse.

‘During February, the impact was mainly related to transports from and to China, but now the impact on supply, demand and transport and logistics capacity is global’, the company explains.

DSV added that given the rapid day-to-day developments in many markets, the company is unable to accurately assess the magnitude of the short-term impact, and thus withdraws its outlook for 2020. The freight forwarder has also suspended its DKK 6 billion (USD 867 million)  share buy-back programme for now.

DSV says it will do its “utmost” to support our customers and keep supply chains open. “This is not business as usual for us, our customers and business partners. There will be disruptions of supply chains, but we will do our part to keep the supply chains open. DSV Panalpina is part of the critical infrastructure globally. We are well prepared for the challenging task ahead and aim to maintain operations as close to normal as possible. We remain strongly committed to mitigating the potential impact on our customers’ supply chains as much as we can”, CEO Jens Bjørn Andersen said.

The company will release an updated outlook for 2020 as soon as it’s able to properly assess the impact of coronavirus on the supply chains and transport and logistics markets and subsequently, the derived impact on DSV’s business.