As Chair of A.P. Møller - Mærsk, I extend a warm welcome to all shareholders at our annual general meeting. Similar to last year, this meeting will be conducted online, allowing our shareholders to participate and interact with the company through our shareholder portal. This format ensures that all our shareholders, across many countries, have the same opportunity and same access to take part of and stay updated via the live webcast. CEO Vincent Clerc has joined me in the studio. Together, we will address any questions you might have. As Chair of the annual general meeting, the board of directors has chosen Niels Kornerup, Partner of the law firm Bech-Bruun. I give the word to Niels.
Thank you, and thank you to the board of directors of appointing me as the meeting Chair of this annual general meeting at A.P. Møller - Mærsk. I look forward to chairing today completely electronic annual general meeting, and to ensure that our meeting is conducted in a proper and appropriate manner. Please note that the general meeting may be delayed by up to some seconds, depending on your device and your internet connection. Consequently, I will occasionally slow down to the speed in order to synchronize the speed here in the studio and what is broadcasted. This year's annual general meeting is held in English. However, I kindly note that the simultaneously interpretation into Danish is available at the AGM portal.
Now we move to the formal part of the introduction, at which we must determine whether the general meeting is duly convened and legally capable of the transaction of the business comprised by the agenda of today. Prior to the annual general meeting, I have made sure that the companies published the notice convening the general meeting in due time, and that the notice properly satisfies the requirement in the company's articles of association as well as the Danish Companies Act. On that basis, I conclude that the annual general meeting is duly convened and legally capable of transacting the business comprised by the agenda of today. I hope for the shareholders' support in this regard. Thank you. I will record this in the minutes of the general meeting.
Immediately before we commenced the general meeting, it was registered that 88% of the A shares after reduction of treasury shares, and thereby the votes are represented at this general meeting. B shares are not included in this figure, as they do not carry voting rights. The fine numbers of votes represented will be set out in the minutes of the general meeting. In respect of postal votes and proxies, the board of directors have received postal votes and proxies equivalent to more than 88% of the votes also, after reduction of treasury shares. Based on the received postal votes and proxies, I can inform you that the board of directors' proposals and recommendations enjoys great support.
For the sake of good order, we must consider Section 101, subsection 5 of the Danish Companies Act, according to which a full account of the voting for every resolution adopted at the general meeting must be provided, even though the results are clear. In line with previous years' practice, I suggest that we deviate from providing a full account of voting for every resolution adopted, and instead an overview of all votes received prior to the general meeting will be provided after the general meeting. By doing so, we avoid having a full actual votes on every item on the agenda of today. I allow to assume that the general meeting agrees with this suggested procedure. Thank you. It is possible to follow the general meeting on the company's website as well as at the AGM portal.
As set out in the notice, the webcast on the company's website will only be available up to and including the Chair's report. To attend the entire general meeting and to participate in the debate, shareholders who have registered their attendance must log on and follow the general meeting at the AGM portal. We now turn to how the debate is carried out. As just mentioned, the AGM portal is a forum for debate, and all registered shareholders have been provided with a login thereto. As shows on the slides, you must click on the Q&A icon in the top right corner of the AGM portal. Once clicked, a window will appear in which you can type your question and comments. Please note that characters are limited to 2,000 characters, or comments and questions are limited to 2,000 characters. When you have finished typing, you must press Send.
The questions and comment will reach us here at A.P. Møller - Mærsk, where a lawyer from my office will review it. Once reviewed, the questions will be read out loud by the shareholder's voice, who I will introduce later. Again, this year our debate is in writing. I therefore encourage that questions and comments, at the benefit of all, are kept clear and concise to ensure a dynamic and appropriate debate. I strongly encourage that all questions and comments are made in English, as they will not be interpreted to English. To ensure that you have ample time to phrase your questions and comments, please note that you may submit at any time your questions and comments to make sure that these are read out, or we will make sure that these submissions are read out loud at the relevant item of the agenda.
Computershare is ready to assist you if you experience technical problems. Computershare can be reached by dialing the telephone number in the AGM portal. Technical problems must be handled by reaching out to Computershare and not by the Q&A function in the AGM portal, please. We are ready to get on board with the agenda of this general meeting, the agenda have been published and is as follows. First, item A is report on the activities of the company during the past financial year, followed by B, submission of the audited annual report for adoption. C is resolution to grant discharge to directors. D is resolution on appropriation of profit, and the amount of dividend in accordance with the adopted annual report. E is remuneration report is presented for approval. F is any requested election of members for the Board of Directors. G is election of auditors.
That bring us to H, which is deliberation of any proposals submitted by the board of directors or by shareholders. This year we have a total of five proposals. One proposal has been submitted by the board of directors, and four proposals has been submitted by shareholders. The five proposals are as follows. Item H1 is the first proposal, is a proposal by the board on share capital decrease. The second one, H2, is a proposal by the shareholder MP Invest on ESG consideration in executives' performance and remuneration. The third one is H3, is a proposal by the same shareholder on disclosure of human rights due diligence processes. Number four is H4, is a proposal by ECCR on behalf of the shareholder Zen Donen on disclosure of human rights due diligence processes.
Lastly, we have H5, which is the fifth proposal, which is a proposal by the shareholder Kritiske Aktionærer regarding shipments of military equipment. Consequently, we now move on to the first item on the agenda. As it is common practice in A.P. Møller - Mærsk, the introductory item on the agenda are processed jointly and brought up for debate jointly. We therefore deal with item A to E all together, and those items will also, as said, be debated jointly. Thus, the chair will present the following, all for 2025: the management report, the annual report, the remuneration report, as well as the proposed profit distribution and dividend. By that, please, chair, the floor is yours.
Thank you. Geopolitical experts have stressed that 2025 was characterized by an accelerated shift towards a multipolar world, exemplified by an increase in U.S. tariffs. Despite this development, global trade proved resilient and trade flows continued to grow in 2025. Container volumes grew by 5.2% on the back of continued strong exports out of China, outpacing global GDP growth of 2.9%. Trade data is, of course, only part of the picture when assessing the state of global and regional supply chains. The number of armed conflicts around the world is now at the highest level since World War II. Freedom of navigation is undermined in several of these conflicts, adding to the human suffering and raising the risk for our own activities.
In the Middle East, which has recently erupted into war with global implications, we have more than 6,000 colleagues on the ground, plus seafarers, in addition to critical assets such as ships, ports, and warehouses. These colleagues provide essential transportation and logistics services to local customers and their communities. This includes a pressing need for import of food, often using cold chain solutions such as Mærsk's reefer containers, a segment where we are the market leader in the region. As Strait of Hormuz is closed for now, we try to find other ways to bring the cargo into the Gulf Living up to our founder's purpose of being a useful business, while always keeping the safety of our seafarers and land-based colleagues at the forefront of our minds.
As written by Arnold Peter Møller in 1946 in a letter to his son, "No loss should hit us, which can be avoided with constant care." The war in the Middle East is merely one of many events over the last few years, which have shaped our customers' view of supply chain-related risks. Since the outbreak of COVID, countries and industries have become increasingly concerned about how unforeseen external developments disrupt the sourcing of goods. Hence, there is a growing need for cargo owners to have a trusted partner which provide resilient transport solutions. In our view, reinforcing the relevance of Mærsk's operational capabilities and asset control. In this respect, it shall be noted that we made good progress across our three businesses in 2025.
For Ocean, we implemented the Gemini Cooperation with Hapag-Lloyd, compromising of almost 50% of our global network capacity, with the objective to dramatically improve port schedule reliability, while also increasing asset utilization. The Gemini network is designed to reduce the number of port calls on affected routes by approximately 40%, thereby also reducing the number of instances of potential vessel delays, which typically occur in ports. At last year's annual general meeting, I mentioned that the company had an ambition to deliver a scheduled reliability of 90% for the Gemini-related network, well above the industry average of 60%. This came across as a stretch to industry insiders. Now, looking back, and to give our colleagues due acknowledgement for their major accomplishment, Gemini has so far been a success, and Mærsk has delivered an industry-leading reliability in line with the set target of 90%.
Also, terminal activities continued to deliver strong operational performance in 2025. As per the World Bank report of the world's most efficient ports, APM Terminals stands out in the top 20 rankings. The strong operational performance has enabled the company to renew several important concessions, including Port Elizabeth in New Jersey and Pier 400 in Los Angeles. At the same time, in 2025, APM Terminals concluded the development of new terminals in growth markets such as Croatia and Vietnam. In addition, the company secured a new greenfield terminal concession in Bangladesh, in what will become a critical gateway for one of the world's most populous regions. For our logistics activities, we continued to expand our footprint in 2025 across products, including in contract logistics, where we inaugurated automated logistics warehouses in several key markets, including in China, Singapore, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia.
These facilities are designed to enable faster throughput, higher reliability, and more cost-efficient operations. Let me also give a brief perspective on two other important areas for our activities, our technology-related initiatives, and the regulatory challenges facing our company. First on technology. We have acknowledged the importance to leverage data and systems for more than half a century. In fact, we established a company to support this endeavor as early as 1970, called Mærsk Data. Today, Mærsk has an annual IT spend of $1.2 billion. We run 3,500 applications across our global operations, and we have more than 5,000 engineers and data scientists in many locations, including in Bangalore, Copenhagen, and Maidenhead. In 2025, we continued to make strong headway in the modernization of our legacy systems.
As mentioned in the past, this is important not only from a cost and efficiency perspective, but it also creates a strong base for us to develop our customer offering and to leverage the potential of new technologies such as AI at scale. Let me comment on the latter, as I believe AI holds profound value to our industry. Due to the enormous complexity of global supply chains, the industry is known for its so-called waste, meaning underutilized assets and not always optimal trade flows, coupled with rapid changes to the operating environment, create, at times, traffic and bottlenecks, higher emissions and costs, and also longer delivery times. AI provides an opportunity to optimize the design of our network, to increase the utilization of our asset base, and to drive efficiencies in our workforce.
Our customers are already starting to see the benefits as the Gemini Cooperation relies on technology to better plan and execute flows in our critical transshipment terminals. As we speak, our operations, sales, and customer service teams are also rolling out AI initiatives to drive productivity and to improve response times. Second, let me comment on the regulatory landscape. While our headquarter is based here in Denmark, we operate globally in very competitive industries. Hence, it is no surprise that Mærsk is highly dependent on the access to international talent. In this respect, the fabric of our company has changed in the last few decades. At the turn of the century, most of our leadership was Danish. That is no longer the case. Our CEO and our CFO do not come from Denmark. In our executive leadership team, we have eight nationalities represented.
Among our top 100 leaders, we have 24 nationalities. Of all staff in our headquarters here in Copenhagen, we have 83 nationalities. As we now embrace nascent and highly impactful technologies such as AI, it becomes even more important, but also challenging, to attract the right people from a scarce global talent pool. On a positive note, Denmark has historically been able to attract international talent by offering time-bound exemptions to its taxation rules, so-called expatriation rules, making it attractive for foreigners to move here. It's a good solution for talent staying in Denmark for a few years. However, as many of our colleagues are part of a succession plan for more senior positions and thus work their way up the corporate ladder over a longer career, then some of our best talent may end up staying for long periods in center functions.
We have recently experienced increased challenges of attracting senior talent to Denmark due to some of the tax rules we have here, including a punitive exit taxation of unrealized assets. This means we are at times forced to relocate senior talent to other countries. Ultimately, the cost of not being competitive internationally is carried by the nation-state when corporate activities and corporate know-how move abroad. With this in mind, we do our utmost to engage with authorities in Denmark and elsewhere to inform them what it takes to create strong international talent hubs and knowledge centers for shipping, logistics, and new technologies such as AI. Now let us turn to our financial results for 2025. Mærsk delivered a result for 2025 in line with expectations, with a revenue of $54 billion and a net profit after tax of $2.9 billion.
Cash flow from operating activities reached $9.9 billion, while gross CapEx totaled $4.8 billion. By year-end, Mærsk's liquidity reserve stood at $26.4 billion. Despite strong volumes, freight rates dropped during the year due to supply side challenges. The return on invested capital in APM Terminals remained very competitive in 2025, and we have seen a gradual improvement of our margins in logistics. Based on these results, the board has proposed a dividend of DKK 480 per share, corresponding to 40% of the underlying net result, which is in line with our dividend policy. in February 2026, the board also initiated a share buyback program of up to DKK 6.3 billion to be executed over 12 months, with the first phase running from February to August. It has been 10 years since we started the restructuring of Mærsk.
For this period, from 2016 until the end of 2025, we have delivered a total share return of 292%. Let me briefly address the board's composition and our governance considerations for the year. This year, we recommend the re-election of five directors. For the time being, we believe that the present board composition aligns well with the company strategy. However, the nomination committee of the board is continuously evaluating whether there is a need for new competencies or changes to the board's composition. I know that remuneration is a matter of importance to many shareholders. The remuneration report, available on our website, discloses the remuneration of our executive board and board of directors. This brings me to the end of my speech.
As we look back on 2025, let me express my sincere gratitude to our directors, our executive team, and our many colleagues across the group for their efforts. I am also grateful for our many leaders' stewardship and for our colleagues' ability to serve customers and local communities, also in conflict areas. As we look ahead, let us be inspired by our own history. 2025 marked the 50th anniversary of Mærsk's first container vessel sailing. in September 1975, Adrian Mærsk departed on her maiden voyage from Newark, New Jersey. This form for liner shipping, what we today call container shipping, enabled Mærsk to provide a faster and more reliable service to our customers. Adrian Mærsk is a reminder of our long-standing ambition to not just provide impactful supply chain solutions, but also to embrace change to stay relevant for the future. Thank you.
Thank you to the chair for the management report, the annual report, the remuneration report, as well as the proposed profit distribution and dividend. This marks the end of the webcast available for everyone at the company's website.