Good morning, everyone, and thank you all for listening in to our earnings call for the second quarter and half year of 2020. I'm Søren Skou. I'm the CEO of A.P. Moller - Maersk, and I'm joined here today by Patrick Jany, our Chief Financial Officer. We are now six months into the COVID-19 pandemic. Right from the start, we decided that we would have three objectives during the pandemic that would guide all of our actions. The first one was protect our people, the second one, serve our customers, and third one was to help the societies that we are part of fight the virus. There's been many challenges throughout the quarter, but I'm very proud of the fact that we have been able to keep our global network running, keep the ports open, keep the warehouses and inland transportation operating throughout the pandemic.
We have never been closed for business. The challenges that our customers have had with their global supply chains have not been driven by an inability to get goods transported across the world, but rather a lack of buffer inventory and single vendor reliability. Our single biggest challenge has been the difficulties with getting our seafarers relieved when their tours were up due to travel restrictions, closed borders, and lack of flights. We continue to battle this problem, but we have started to make some real progress. All through the pandemic, our business has been negatively impacted by lower demand. In the second quarter, our volumes were down 14% in our terminals and 16% in ocean, year-on-year. April was the worst month, with ocean volumes being down 20%.
Volumes have sequentially improved since then, and we are now in August in mid to high single digits down year-on-year. As a consequence of lower volumes, our revenue was down 6.5% in the second quarter of 2020. Despite the negative development in turnover, however, our results continued to improve. The second quarter was the eighth consecutive quarter with year-on-year improvements in operating earnings. EBITDA was up 25% year-on-year. We again delivered strong cash flow, with cash flow from operations at $1.9 billion and free cash flow before dividends, share buybacks and acquisitions of $1.1 billion. Our net result in the second quarter almost tripled to $443 million. With this backdrop, we reiterate our previously announced intention to share a material part of the proceeds from the sale of the Total shares with the shareholders through a share buyback.
The first phase share buyback was completed in July, as we said when we announced that back in May of 2019, when the program had ended, we would review the capital structure with the intention of distribute further. We will do that in Q4 and come out with a statement latest as part of the full year report in February of 2021. Despite the fact that we are in the middle of a pandemic with continued high uncertainty, we are today reinstating our full year guidance for 2020 with an EBITDA expectation of $6 billion-$7 billion, which should be compared with our initial guidance back in February of an EBITDA around $5.5 billion. Now, moving on to the next slide. On this slide, we illustrate the strong trend that we now have in terms of improving earnings, returns, and cash flow over the last eight quarters.
While we are not yet where we want to be in terms of return on invested capital, we were at 4.7% return on invested capital on a last 12 months basis in the second quarter. In the quarter itself, our return on invested capital was actually 6.6% annualized. Free cash flow before distributions to shareholders and acquisitions came in at $3.2 billion on a last 12 months basis, which is more than 10% of our market cap and more than the net interest-bearing debt that we have before lease liabilities. Along with the strong cash flow generation, we kept our capital discipline, which enabled our cash return on invested capital to reach 12.5%. I'm frankly quite proud of the continued progress over the last two years where we have not had the wind in our back. Actually, markets have been against us.
Accelerating trade tensions have slowed down global trade. We have had to deal with an IMO 2020 that required us to pass on substantial costs to our customers, and we are now dealing with a pandemic which has caused a sharp reduction in demand. All of that has not slowed our rate of progress over the last eight quarters. While we are a cyclical business or considered a cyclical business, I think it's fair to say that our financial performance has been counter-cyclical in the last two years. We've shown that our product offerings and the agility we have in balancing supply and demand, as well as our approach to cost in general, means that we can meet customer needs and positively impact our performance at the same time. Our focus on profits and cash flow over market share in ocean is paying off.
The fact that we have kept our capacity steady around 4 million TEU for the last couple of years, the fact that we've become better at adjusting deployed capacity to match demand in an agile way, and the fact that we do not have a large order book, neither on ships nor on terminals under construction, has helped us through the pandemic. With that, I will hand over to Patrick, who will walk you through the financials.
Good morning to all of you also from my side. Turning to slide eight. We can certainly say that the financial highlight of the second quarter was the increase in profitability, with a profit from Q2 rising to $443 million compared to $154 million a year ago. This improvement came exclusively from a higher operational profitability, which is all the more remarkable as it was achieved despite a 6.5% revenue decrease as a consequence of lower volumes in all businesses, especially in Ocean and Terminals and Towage, given the impact of COVID-19. Our continuous focus on profitability implied significant efforts in terms of capacity deployment, cost measures, and pricing across the whole organization. Especially Ocean and Logistics & Services contributed significantly to the 25% increase in EBITDA, leading to an EBITDA margin of 18.9%, up from 14.1% a year ago.
It is also worth mentioning the resilience of Terminals and Towage, which managed to fully offset a large decline in volumes. Consequently, EBIT increased 81% to $751 million compared to $416 million in Q2 2019, leading to an EBIT margin of 8.3% compared to 4.3% last year. The other positions had a fairly small impact on profitability. The increased depreciation, amortization, and impairments was mainly caused by some impairments and a higher depreciation due to the Performance Team acquisition. This was offset by the income from disposals, namely the disposal of our factory in Maersk Container Industry in Dongguan, the PPF consolidation, and other minor disposals. Financial expenses increased $62 million, mainly caused by negative foreign exchange impact, partly offset by lower net interest expense from lower debt. Tax decreased slightly, which is mainly due to lower dividends received.
All in all, profitability was significantly up, with an underlying profit of $359 million compared to $134 million in the previous year. Turning to slide nine. Cash flow from operations was strong, improving 60% to $1.9 billion on the back of an increase in EBITDA of $340 million, an improvement in net working capital of $124 million, and a positive non-cash impact of $204 million. Cash conversion reached 110% compared to 86% last year. Free cash flow in the quarter was $1.1 billion after considering capitalized lease installments, gross CapEx, and net financial expenses. Please note that we remained strict on our capital discipline and maintain our accumulated CapEx guidance of $3 billion-$4 billion in total for this year and the next. Looking at the use of cash.
We have made the acquisition of Performance Team and paid dividends and share buyback, accumulating to a total of almost $600 million, all covered by the free cash flow of the quarter. Finally, we took some defensive decisions towards our balance sheet in the light of the risk of COVID-19 and secured additional facilities of $1 billion that you can see having a net impact of $900 million. This brings us to a $1.2 billion increase cash and cash equivalents over the quarter. The improved free cash flow led to a decrease in net interest-bearing debt of $400 million in the quarter to $11.6 billion below the year-end 2019 level. It is also worth mentioning that excluding these liabilities, net interest-bearing debt equals just $3.1 billion, on par with year-end 2019. Let us now turn to the business development and starting with Ocean on slide 10.
Revenue in Ocean declined 8.7% due to a 16% decline in volumes, caused by the COVID-19-triggered reduction in demand. The cost base improved significantly, led by lower cost due to the agile capacity deployment and lower bunker prices. This, combined with improved freight rates, led to a 26% increase in EBITDA and an EBITDA margin of 20.7%. Please note that in this quarter, Maersk Oil Trading contributed negatively to EBITDA, mainly led by unrealized loss on derivatives due to the increasing oil price during the quarter. Further progress was made in offering new solutions to our customers. As an example, Maersk Spot once again gained further traction, and by the end of the quarter accounted for more than 40% of spot volumes, allowing us to better optimize the utilization of our vessels and to provide a better service to our spot customers.
On slide 11, we have again this quarter illustrated in a waterfall bridge the main movements in EBITDA compared to the previous year. As you can see on the graph, the biggest movement is the 16% volume decline, which implied a negative impact of $634 million. This impact was in effect mostly compensated by the freight rate and the bunker price effect, which amounted to $305 million and $255 million respectively. To offset the negative impact from the decline in demand, we have been deploying an active capacity strategy. That means that we took out capacity in April to match the expected demand decline of 20%-25% and have thereafter cautiously increased capacity where demand was stronger than expected. Going forward, we will continue with our strategy to closely match capacity with demand during these uncertain times.
The agile capacity deployment meant that we idled more than 166 sailings in Q2, which led to a decline in container handling cost of $80 million, as well as a decline in network cost and bunker consumption of $151 million. Further cost reductions, mainly in SG&A were achieved and significantly contributed to the profitability improvement. The last post on the graph shows that due to an increase in oil price over the quarter, we have in this quarter the opposite effect as shown in Q1. We now do report a negative impact from unrealized derivatives of $79 million this quarter, which is purely a timing effect. Assuming a stable oil price, this position will neutralize in the coming months. Turning to slide 12. Our total cost in ocean declined 16% from the lower capacity, lower bunker costs, and reduced time charter cost.
We had a small positive impact from FX, and if you adjust for this, the total operating cost declined 15%. We held a tight capacity deployment, which led to a decrease in offered capacity, which was slightly more than a decline in the actual volumes as we expected the decline in volumes to be steeper. We deployed the capacity progressively back into the market throughout the quarter as a response to slowly increasing demand. Our total bunker cost declined 37%, led by a 25% bunker price decline, lower total consumption, and further improvements in bunker efficiency. Given the significant volume decline, our unit cost increased 7.3% at a fixed bunker price. On the next slide, we are showing three graphs portraying the global demand growth, the effective supply and demand balance, and the freight rate index, CCFI.
What is key for us in Maersk is to focus on profitability and margins through managing our cost base by using an active capacity deployment strategy. This has since February meant that we have carefully watched demand and deployed capacity to match demand to the best of our ability, given the rapidly changing circumstances and support our customers. If we compare our own situation today with our situation after the financial crisis, we have been much more agile in the way we balance supply to meet the decline in demand and manage cost, and therefore we have not to the same extreme degree seen such a negative demand supply imbalance.
Our tools to be more agile in our capacity deployment so we can balance it to demand to the movements both up and down include that we have a larger network, so we have more flexibility to adjust capacity downwards while still offer a strong product to our customers. The fact that our business has turned more digitalized, like with Maersk Spot, which increases transparency and gives us better tools in utilizing our vessels. Turning to slide 14, our average freight rates increased by 4.5% in the quarter, driven by higher short-term freight rates as our contracts rates decreased because we are lowering the BAF element, the contract rates as a consequence of the lower bunker price. Total volumes decreased by 16% as all trades contracted, but led by Latin America and Intra-Americas, where volumes declined 25% and 21% respectively.
As it looks today, we expect that the second quarter of 2020 was the trough in terms of volume. It did see a gradual improvement over the quarter, with April being mostly affected, with volumes down close to 20% and June just short of a 10% decline. On slide 15, we turn our attention to Logistics and Services, which despite the negative impacts from COVID-19, reported unchanged revenue. This is led by air freight forwarding that saw a temporary increase in the Asia Pacific region due to the shortage of cargo capacity and by the inclusion of Performance Team from early April. This growth compensated our supply chain management, intermodal and inland services businesses, which were negatively hit by the effects of COVID-19.
Gross profit increased 22% with the GP margin improving by 4.3% - 23%, and EBITDA more than doubled to $97 million due to higher margins in air freight forwarding, profitability improvements in intermodal, and the inclusion of Performance Team. As mentioned earlier, we are excited about our upcoming acquisition of KGH Customs Services, and we look forward to improving our offering within customs services in Europe even further. The deal is expected to close latest in Q4 2020, pending regulatory approval. Slide 16 shows the development of gross profit and EBIT conversion in our Logistics and Services segment, which has showed a clear improvement in the last year as we have improved profitability in the segment, especially within intermodal and now also in warehousing and distribution despite the negative COVID-19 has on this type of businesses.
A part of the improvement in this quarter is Performance Team, which contributed with $11 million to the EBITDA. The integration is progressing well despite COVID-19, and we are already now seeing additional customers because of our increased warehousing and distribution services in North America. Finally, our EBIT conversion improved in the quarter. You can see on the graph on the right that when you exclude impairment and restructuring costs, we have an EBIT conversion in the highest single-digit area. We are now working on improving this, which you can already see some indication of. To further improve these metrics, we will continue to focus on growing our business as we gain scale, but also constantly review cost and structural measures. On page 17, we turn to Terminals and Towage, which showed great resilience to the decline in demand due to the strong cost control.
Revenue declined 9.6%. EBITDA increased by 3%, with a margin of 27%. Both businesses contributed to the strong performance. EBITDA and Gateway terminals was on par with last year, with an EBIT margin increasing by 2.9%- 25.7%. EBITDA in Towage increased by 11%, mainly due to lower costs. Turning to the next slide 18, we have visualized the effects from volumes, revenue, and costs on EBITDA of Gateway terminals. Volumes declined a severe 14% in Gateway terminals. The volume impact varied significantly across regions, with Asia impacted the most with a 23% volume reduction. North America with a 17% reduction. Latin America, Africa and Middle East decreased the least by 9.3% and 6.2% respectively. The lower volumes led to a 15% low utilization, which had a negative impact on EBITDA of $64 million. This was fully offset by three factors.
First, an improvement mix, which means that we had higher volumes in the most profitable ports. Secondly, because of the challenges to the global supply chains in the quarter, we saw more storage income with positive contribution to EBITDA. Thirdly, we have managed to work on the cost base, for example, on a G&A, which had a $34 million impact on the EBITDA. On the next slide, we show the equity-weighted EBITDA of our gateway terminals, both consolidated JVs and associates, which was largely on par with last year and underlines the stability of earnings of this business. In the last 12 months, the total equity-weighted EBITDA was $1.3 billion, of which JVs and associated contributed with $551 million. The cash contribution through divest to dividends in the last 12 months has been $161 million or 29% of EBITDA, with a payout ratio of 87% of net result.
Turning to manufacturing and others, we reported a 17% increase in revenue in Maersk Container Industry and an 87% increase in EBITDA. This is partly due to cost reductions and partly due to some Q1 2020 production pushed into the second quarter as the factory was closed for some weeks because of COVID-19. With that, I pass the word to Søren for the full year guidance.
Thank you, Patrick. Yes, as I already have stated, despite the fact that the pandemic still poses significant uncertainty on demand, we are reinstating our full year guidance for 2020, expecting an EBITDA between $6 billion and $7 billion before restructuring any integration costs. Global demand growth for containers is overall still expected to contract in 2020. For the third quarter, which we are now halfway through, we expect demand to progressively recover and end for the third quarter in a mid single-digit contraction. Organic growth in ocean. Our own organic growth in ocean is expected to be in line with or slightly lower than the average market growth. We also maintain our two year CapEx guidance of $3 billion-$4 billion, with steps being taken to reduce CapEx in 2020, and we expect high cash conversion still for both years. With this, we will open for questions.
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. The session will end no later than 12:00. Our first question comes from the line of Neil Glynn from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody. If I could ask two questions, please. The first one on the ocean business. You've seen a high teen EBITDA margin in the first half, and that seems to be implied for the full year. That mirrors Maersk Line's 2010 performance, which obviously proved quite temporary. Just interested in your views on capacity management. Those parts are clear, as competitor capacity comes back, to what extent do you feel you can better control your margins now than in the past, and how? The second question on free cash flow. I think your comments are very well understood, I'm interested to what extent is each division steered based on free cash flow targets at the moment and potentially in the future?
Do you expect to eventually guide on group free cash flow to put the pieces of your overall messages together as a free cash flow to the market as some of your peers do?
Yeah. Thanks, Neil. This is Søren here. I think many things are obviously different between the global financial crisis and this pandemic, and that was what we also sought to illustrate in the charts where we compared those two time periods. I think, first of all, we don't have any plans to change our approach in terms of matching capacity to demand in an agile fashion. In 2009, we actually kept the network operating for a long time and lowered prices instead, in order to fill a network that was too big. Another thing that I think that is very different today is that in 2009, the industry, and for that matter, also ourselves, had an order book which was probably equal to 50% or 60% of the existing capacity. Today, the order book is 9%, the last number I saw.
It's a much different capacity outlook coming at us. I think, at least for us, our own part, we, in 2009, we actually went after market share. This time, we are saying very clearly, and I have been saying for a couple of years, and the pandemic has just strengthened our resolve, that we want to focus on profitability and serving our customers, basically.
I'll take on the second question. As you have seen, we obviously focus on profitability and on cash flow, right? We took the liberty now to change the definition of free cash flow this quarter to make it simpler and to really show the free cash flow generation, which is quite tremendous this quarter, and we expect to continue in the coming quarters as we maintain a very strict discipline. I think this discipline and focus on cash is across the whole organization. Thereby, I would say all businesses contribute to this cash. They will have different levels of performance, depending, obviously, on the quarter, sometimes different ROIC levels as well and cash ROICs. We are quite happy to actually show an improvement across the board.
I think we'll continue to show it at group level if there would be a significant, I would say, evolution in one segment. Obviously, we provide this transparency, but I think it's important to see it as a group figure and a group achievement as well.
Perhaps I could just very quickly add, this is really the extension of the strategy that we have been working on for the last four years. We said four years ago that we wanted the Terminals business to actually generate cash. It had been investing a lot over the previous decade, reporting good earnings, but never generating any cash. That situation has reversed. We have also been very clear that we will have a very disciplined approach to ordering of new ships. Today we don't have an order book, and therefore, of course, we're generating a lot of free cash flow. Thank you.
Thank you both.
The next question comes from the line of Lars Heindorff from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes, morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Two questions also from my part regarding the Ocean part of the business. The first one is on the rates, fairly strong rate development, also what we can see from the CCFI and SCFI index here into the peak season. You did have a report, a sequential decline in your average rate in the second quarter. I assume that that was partly caused by lower BAF because of the BAF element has been going down. That is likely to continue to go down into the third quarter. The question is, if you could give us an indication about which direction, sequentially, on the average rate, and also the element of bunker going into the third quarter. That's the first part.
You're right. If you look at our contract portfolio, which you know is about half of our business, some of the contracts are monthly adjustment of BAF and some are quarterly. Obviously those that are monthly, they have started to adjust downward during the quarter. The situation right now is that, though that on average, we have been able to, if you will, make that up with increasing spot freight rates.
The contract element of your rates, is that sort of developing stable or can you give us indication on that?
We don't have many contract rates that are being negotiated at this time during the year. The contracts that we have are fairly stable, and given the big difference between the spot market and the contract market, I'm sure our customers are very happy with the contracts.
Maybe to complete your question on the next quarters, I think we will see this evolution continue, right? As the structure is what Søren described, and therefore you will see on the contract rates a progressive reduction because of the BAF. And also a slight increase in bunker price, which was the second part of your question as bunker prices have come up a little bit.
Okay. The other question was in what you call other revenue in Ocean. I realized that there's an element of MOT in there, which is. If I understood you correctly, it was negative in the quarter. The number still is fairly high, around $1 billion on a quarterly basis. Now, with the decline in the capacity and the change in, I don't know if the attitude, if you call it that, towards industry, where you're becoming a net seller rather than buyer, I would have thought that the VSA income would sort of gradually and slowly decline. This number appears to still be fairly high, and I'm just wondering if you could give us maybe a little bit of help on that part of the revenue line.
Maybe to help you on the components, there are different components here. You have, obviously, the income of MOT, which was fairly stable compared to the previous quarter, and it's not the major part here. The bigger part here is as well the revenue from the hubs, which we are having with other carriers and charges for demurrage so on, which also were quite a significant element. Overall, it has been actually quite a stable development compared to previous year. Pretty much, I think, the same figure as far as I recall. It's the order of magnitude you should count on as well for the coming quarters.
Okay. All right. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line of Patrick Roussel from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good morning. First of all, congrats on strong performance and success of your strategy in recent years. I've got three questions, please. The first one is just follow up on your rate comments. If you could go into a little bit more detail, first of all, on the Pacific. I think the contracts were implemented a bit later this year. The trade is doing very well. Perhaps, give a bit of color there, whether we should expect those contracts to go up despite the falling BAFs in the second half. Also specifically on the North/South network and how you see current trading evolving into H2.
No, Patrick. We are honoring the contracts that we have made, so there will be a stable development on that, irrespective of what happens in the spot market. I'm not 100% sure on your question on North/South, but obviously, as the pandemic has moved around in the world, it kind of got last to South America, and hasn't really hit Africa to any dramatic extent. That's why we have a very massive decline in this quarter and right now in Latin American trades, where we are overweight.
Should we expect the North/South rate to continue to go down in the second half?
I can't give you any prediction on the rate developments in that trade. We, of course, hope that also in Latin America, the pandemic will get under control in the coming months, but we are not experts on that.
Okay. Second on CapEx. You've guided for 2020 and 2021 maximum $2 billion growth. Without guiding beyond 2021, can you give us an idea of the sustainable CapEx level, essentially, to keep Gateway terminal concession life constant? Would it be materially higher than this $2 billion, apart of that for 2021?
Yeah. To your question on CapEx, we have guide, as you mentioned, for 2021. We are totally within that guidance on the good side of it, as you see from the pace that we have in 2020. I think to your question on the midterm, I think we obviously will come back with our next guidance when the year develops by Q3 or early in 2021 to give you a guidance precisely on the next few years. From the order of magnitude, I think we are not expecting an explosion of CapEx. We actually have, with the current framework, quite a stable CapEx in the coming years as well. I think it's quite a regular expense, just in the magnitude of what we have announced as well.
Right. Thank you. Last one. In terms of the use of that free cash flow you're generating at this time, can you just remind us the order of priority in terms of use of cash between delevering further, going back to perhaps larger M&A and then buyback and dividends?
Well, I think first of all, the priority is to generate the cash, right? We are quite happy on the quarter. The $1 billion is a nice number. When it comes to use of cash, clearly, I think we have now guided as well that we will come back latest with the full year results on the next plan of further share buybacks and return of capital to the shareholders. Our dividend policy is unchanged as well, of 30%-40% of profit. These are strong elements which are there and will continue to be present for the future. Given the cash flow generation that we have and we expect to have, we will hopefully have significant means as well to continue to develop our strategy. As you have seen, we have been very disciplined.
We are looking at buying capabilities to really build up.
The integration of our Logistics and Services business with our container business, allowing our current ocean customers to benefit from our services as well on the inland. Therefore, it's a very targeted capability building that you should expect as well.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Sam Bland from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Morning. Through I guess the second quarter, the industry and industry profitability levels have benefited from blank sailings and other capacity measures. To what extent do you think those tools are really just something that we've seen in this extraordinary environment? Or do you think those similar tools could be deployed on a more business as usual basis going forward in subsequent years to help support freight rates and profitability? Thank you.
In 2009, the thinking in Maersk, and I think for the whole industry, was that if you had a network, then you would have to keep sailing it and then fill it up at all costs. Obviously that approach has completely changed, and we are now operating our network in a fashion which is very similar to what the courier express and package guys are doing in terms of UPS and FedEx. There, we are not sitting and discussing how many airplanes are on order and the capacity in the network. There, they deploy the flights when there's a demand, and when there's not, they don't. That's really what we have been doing through this crisis. I can say certainly for Maersk, that will be our approach going forward. Since it has worked so well for us, why should we change that?
It's a structural capability that we didn't have to the same extent in 2009, not just because of the culture and the way of thinking, but also the fact that we now have a much bigger network, makes it much simpler to take capacity out. If you are operating two services from Asia to Europe a week, then it's a huge decision to take out one string, because you cannot cover all the ports then, and some customers will not be served. If you're operating 13 or 14 as we did before the crisis, then it's quite a simpler proposition to take out capacity and still serve all customer demands. In my view, this is a structural change.
Sounds good. Thanks very much.
The next question comes from the line of Dan Togo, Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hello, thank you. Also a couple of questions from my side. In terms of the market and how volumes has progressed, it seems like they are surprised a bit on the positive side, at least compared to how we viewed it during the pandemic. Is there any element of windfall in volumes right now coming back here June, July, August, due to restocking air cargo volume still being extremely low and seeking different modes, and at least return a bit more negative later on? Is there any element of windfall? That's the first question.
Our visibility is not fantastic. On the positive side, you've seen the US market, the Pacific market rebound very strongly after the country started to reopen. The fact that the stimulus packages, the $600 check, has really meant that the consumer has spent a lot of money once the economy opened up again. We today have more capacity deployed in the Pacific serving the U.S. than we had in the same period last year to cater to a demand that is up 5%-10% year-on-year right now. We are getting some benefit from the fact that the consumers are spending more of their dollars on goods as opposed to services. The money that they cannot spend in restaurants and on travel and vacations and events, part of that is being spent on a new flat screen and a new patio furniture.
That is, of course, to our benefits. In other markets, such as particularly Latin America, volumes are down 25% and it is looking really difficult. I think this development is likely that you have a big drop in demand while the country is fighting the virus. When the economy starts to reopen again, then you see a bounce back which I'm sure also includes some restocking.
Okay, thanks. Just a question on the digitalization, because it seems to move very fast at the moment. I guess 20% per quarter is not the run rate, but how far can you take it, the digitalization here on the spot volumes? Where can we see the benefits? Can you be a bit more concrete on what the benefits are for you here on the cost side? Thanks.
We see plenty of progress and plenty of potential for expansion, and eventually it will be close to 100%. I think what is a complication right now is how to implement it in the U.S., where there are a lot of rules for how to file with the Federal Maritime Commission and so on, that we need to resolve. The big benefits for us are that it's a commitment product, so it means that the customer makes a booking and actually has to show up with a container, or pay a penalty. That, of course, makes it easier and simpler for us to plan utilization. We can avoid a lot of last-minute downfalls that we have to plan in, and then we risk rolling our customers when we get it wrong. There's that benefit.
Obviously, there's a cost benefit for us because the customer is doing all the work in terms of getting a price online, making a booking, doing the documentation, and so on. There's an SG&A benefit for us as well.
Okay, thanks. Just lastly on ROIC and how we should see that developing. There is definitely some underlying improvement here. Søren, you have mentioned clear time departure service industry, and you mentioned it again here. Is this a industry we should look for to see where you will see returns, so to say, in the container industry going forward?
Yeah, I think we obviously can only talk about our performance. I think you know that ROIC is a key priority for us. We show regularly, I think, the improvement on the ROIC and cash ROIC. The cash ROIC gives you a bit of a lead indication on whether the ROIC is going right. You've seen that we are now at more than 10%-12%, which is a good performance, clearly. What is more important is really the consistency of the improvement over the quarters. We are building upon that. Clearly, I think there's a wish here to improve returns, to reduce volatility of those returns through the cycle and earn your cost of capital. There's still a way to go, but I think we start to see a real improvement quarter by quarter.
Sounds good. Thanks a lot.
The next question comes from the line of Parash Jain from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and congratulations, first of all, on a great set of results. I have two questions. Firstly, your guidance with respect to demand, not only in the third quarter, but the expectation that first half 2021 perhaps will be something to the level that we have seen in 2019 is very reassuring. Can I quickly check your thoughts around supply? I mean, what could possibly go wrong or right in the sense that we are hearing articles talking about equipment shortage? More importantly, I was more curious to understand how are you managing your crew changes. Will it at any point can lead to further capacity constraint, as probably crew member will continue to find it difficult to change in between as the lockdowns persist with respect to international travel?
Second question is more around if you can share your thoughts about the freight development in intra-regional trade, which has seen a decline versus positive development in East, West and North, South. Is it more because of some changes in the routes or back or you have seen a genuine weakness in the intra-regional route? Thank you.
Look, crew change has been a really big issue for us or a problem because it built up over the second quarter. In July, we had two-thirds of our crews more We have around 6,500 people on board at any given time. In July, two-thirds of those were out longer than the longest period they were allowed out under their contract. We have since then been able to deal with the issue or start dealing with the issue. We are now down to about a third that are out longer than their contract allows. We're making progress every day. It will still be a while before the problem is resolved. Of course, we are doing all that we can, including we have rented hotels capacity in Mumbai and in Manila.
We bring in our seafarers, we quarantine them there, we test them, and then we fly them to Denmark and distribute them from Denmark to the ships. We've also some arrangements in Singapore and Hong Kong. I believe that our crews on board understand that we take this problem very seriously. We spend a lot of money to help them get back home for their vacations so they can see their families. We are not expecting, if that's your question, a kind of a tools down or strikes or anything. Of course, we cannot guarantee anything. We don't think it will impact our capability to run our network.
Your second question was.
Okay.
On the intra-regional volumes. I think we have seen very mixed situation.
Development rather. Yes.
Sorry?
An intra-regional freight rate trend. Volume decline was understandable.
Right. Well, clearly, I think it's a bit correlated, right? Clearly, we have seen very mixed volumes in the evolution of the volumes, and also this has an impact on the rates. I think we mentioned clearly the example of Latin America before, which is a very strong region for us, also in the intra-regional, the cabotage in Brazil and so on. Clearly there, we do have a real impact on the COVID-19 crisis, which has depressed volumes, and therefore as well, rates. I think this will solve itself region by region as flows stabilize. I think we're confident here that as the crisis progressively is resolved, we'll have a normalization both on the volumes and on the rates. We don't see it as a structural issue. It is really a circumstantial correlation now because of COVID-19.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from the line of Marcus Blom from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Some questions about Maersk Spot. Do you think that the desire for guaranteed loading has been unusually high in Q2 due to the supply chain turmoil? Is there a risk that volumes will move away again from Maersk Spot when things calm down a little?
It's possible that there has been a bit of, if you will, flight to safety that has benefited us. We actually are 100% convinced that the ease of use of the product is such that the uptake is driven by this just being a good product, and that we will continue to see growth in the usage of that product.
Okay. I've heard some freight forwarders complain that you do not differentiate prices on Maersk Spot, which I would think would mean a higher average price for you. Is that the case?
Well, it's in the nature of a product that you buy online that there's no differentiation on the price, but the price changes, so to speak, all the time. It's being priced with help of algorithms, and of course, we are looking at the uptake curve. It's very similar to how it works for airlines and the price setting for airline tickets.
Okay. You did say that costs were lower in Maersk Spot. I think I saw that Hapag-Lloyd launched a similar product recently. I'm wondering, is Maersk Spot another phenomenon where Maersk kind of leads and makes a bit more money on it for a while, but the competitors then catch up eventually?
Yeah. We have noticed that a number of our competitors actually now offer a version of a product like Maersk Spot. Frankly, I think that it would be very strange if our industry would not develop in the direction that our customers buy online, and just like we do in business to consumer industries. Therefore, a version of a Spot product, in my view, will be table stakes in two to three years. Yeah. That's how I see it.
Okay, great. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Sathish Kumar from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have three questions. Firstly, could you please touch upon the cost savings that have been materialized this year as a result of pandemic? How much of it is actually structural and how much it is volume driven, i.e., how much of those costs are likely to come back up when we see a recovery in volumes? The second one regarding the net debt to EBITDA, what is the ideal range in the near term and into next year? How does this reflect with your buyback and CapEx plans for next few years beyond 2021? Lastly, are you seeing any pressure on credit terms or working capital from your customers and suppliers, especially during the peak of crisis in Q2?
Thanks for your question. When you look at the cost savings, clearly, if you take the example of Q2, we had a significant reduction of cost. Obviously volumes do play a part, right? That is clear as well as lower bunker costs. Element here, as we have tried to show it on the slide, is really related, the majority of volume linked or indirectly linked. Clearly you save on the bunker consumption, you save on container handling costs, which if you assume that volumes rebound, then those costs will come back. We have also improved on bunker efficiency, and we have also improved significantly on SG&A as well. Hereby not only, let's say, the COVID-19 related travel expense reduction, which probably everybody has in every company.
We would expect if you look at the normalization of volumes, that a good part of the savings is actually repeatable and therefore sustainable. I think if you take a first view of around, I would say probably $200 million, it is surely not a false number. Again, as we highlighted, we will be working constantly on the cost measures and on further structural measures. Expect certainly more from us in terms of cost savings and simplifications. Yeah. When we look at the net debt development to EBITDA, our main goal here is to be investment grade. Clearly, the first objective is to generate the cash, reduce, I would say, the volatility here, have a solid EBITDA and cash flow generation and net debt will obviously decline as we have highlighted it.
If you re-look at the financial debt, right, without the leasing, which frankly is part of operations because we can always return the ships, but that's not the purpose. We are $3.1 billion, which is already, say, quite a small number compared to the EBITDA. On that point of view, we have a solid position in our view, which we will maintain. Clearly, any further move in terms of investments, acquisitions and share buyback and so on, the financing capacity, so to say, of the group, is always measured against investment grade and the solidity of that rating. Your third question was on the pressure on the working capital from our customers. I think we have actually done a tremendous job in the segments here. Our people have been very close to our customers.
If you see actually, we have an improvement of working capital in Q2, which means we have a net inflow, which shows that we have been very aware of our receivables and payables positions. We actually, this quarter, have not increased any provisions in trade receivables because we feel that collection is coming well and we have a good contact here with our customers. For now, I think we have seen actually a very disciplined organization and collection. No specific pain in that element.
If I could just follow up on the investment grade comment that you made. The investment grade comment on your net debt to EBITDA, what is the actual range that you look at, excluding the leases?
Well, you see that's always depending on the rating agencies. You do have, as you know, for S&P, it's more free cash flow to net debt definition and not the multiple. I think it's a multidimensional one. I think it looks good actually on all the metrics from that point of view. I think we are convinced that it's good.
Okay. Yeah. Thank you very much for taking my question.
The last question comes from the line of Frans Høyer from Handelsbanken. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Thanks for the comments on near-term demand. That's really helpful. Also on the equipment side and any imbalances on the equipment side, are they a factor right now in terms of influencing rates in the market, please?
Yeah. I think it's really hard to say, but there are plenty of reports out there that a lot of equipment, I'm not just talking for Maersk, but for the industry, if you will, has been stuck in Europe and the U.S. and other importing regions. Is slow in finding its way back to Asia. I think the leasing market is a good indicator, and it's very hard to lease equipment in Asia, which does suggest that the equipment needs to get back from Europe and the U.S. to Asia in the coming months.
Okay. I noticed also that Maersk Ocean has reduced its fleet quite significantly in the quarter during the Q2, and I was wondering if there is much more to be done there without shrinking the service network discernibly?
Well, we started out the pandemic basically taking 20% of our capacity out for April, and then we have been, if you will, reinstating capacity, and we are probably 95% back to where we started before the pandemic. We have plenty of opportunity to adjust back down again if we need to. Hopefully, however, we are right in our predictions that volumes are sequentially improving, not the opposite. That we will have to see how the world fares in a second wave. Our guidance assumes that there will not be a new global lockdown phase, but that lockdowns from a second wave will be local or regional in nature, as we have seen in the last months or so in Europe.
Okay. Thank you very much.
As a note for the questions, I'll hand it back to the speakers.
Thank you. I think this has been a very fast, what we consider to be a strong quarter in terms of improvements. We are confirming an already existing trend of constant progress now over eight quarters. We have done really well in Ocean this quarter. This is the reason for why we're doing better than the same quarter last year, predominantly, and driven very much by our active approach on managing our capacity and costs in general. I think we also are very pleased with the resilience that our Terminals business, our Svitzer business has shown. Despite the 14% reduction in volumes, we still managed to keep earnings flat in Terminals. That's quite positive. We are, as we just discussed, coming out of this quarter with very strong balance sheet, strong cash performance.
Not only have we improved the profitability of the business, but we also continue to transform with true transactions and in the logistics space, and we are ready to do more in the coming quarters and years on our transformation. With all that, thank you very much for listening in, and I hope you have a good rest of the day.