Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our conference call on the financial results for the first 9 months of 2023. I look forward to presenting the figures to you today and giving some color on the latest developments. Afterwards, as always, I will be happy to answer your questions. The year 2023 continues to confront us with major challenges, as the difficult global economic situation has become increasingly gloomy. In autumn, the economic forecasts for both the global economy and Germany were revised downwards again. At a time when the war in Ukraine, stubborn inflation and rising interest rates continue to unsettle consumers and industry, the flare-up of conflict in the Middle East is adding to a further burden. Therefore, the volume trend after first 9 months was still down.
However, HHLA achieved higher handling volumes in the third quarter than in the previous two quarters of the year, and also exceeded the same period of the previous year. Whether this is already a sustainable trend, has to be seen. Cost savings were offset by higher maintenance expenses, increased material prices, and the first time full effect of inflation-induced wage settlements compared to the previous year. Against the backdrop of this persistently difficult economic development, we are sticking to our EBIT forecast for 2023, although we expect to achieve the lower end of this range. Before I go into the details of our segment development, I would like to address another topic that has kept us and our investors very busy in recent weeks. We are talking about the takeover offer from MSC.
As you all know, the City of Hamburg agreed to a strategic participation of MSC in HHLA as part of an investor agreement. Immediately after receiving this information, HHLA published the corresponding ad hoc announcement on September 13, 2023. According to this agreement, the City of Hamburg will remain the majority shareholder. It intends to manage the company together with MSC, and thus further develop HHLA. To this end, the City of Hamburg intends to hold a 50.1 stake in the future, and MSC a stake of up to 49.9%. After MSC has made a voluntary public takeover offer, the executive board and the supervisory board fulfilled their legal obligation to examine the offer carefully and impartially in the best interest of all stakeholders, including the company's employees, customers, and shareholders.
Taking into account the offer price of EUR 16.75 per Class A share, as well as the economic and strategic terms of HHLA, both the executive board and supervisory board recommended to the shareholders to accept the offer. With the signing of the binding preliminary framework agreement, HHLA was able to reach extended commitments for the long-term development of the company. This includes, in particular, subject to the approval of the Hamburg Parliament, the City of Hamburg and MSC will provide HHLA with additional equity capital totaling EUR 450 million for investments in business operations over the next few years following the closing of the transaction. The neutrality and independence of HHLA's business model, in particular, of the intermodal subsidiary, METRANS, and thus the equal treatment of all customers, will be ensured.
All customers will continue to have equal access to all HHLA's terminals and services throughout Europe. HHLA will retain decision-making authority over its investment planning. In particular, the ongoing modernization of HHLA's container terminals in Hamburg and the international expansion of the intermodal network in the coming years are thus secured. The City of Hamburg and MSC will support the corresponding investment plans, totaling at least EUR 775 million in the years 2025-2028. Significant commitments were achieved for the employees. In particular, the exclusion of redundancies for operational reasons for at least five years. Co-determination within the HHLA Group continues to be maintained. Ultimately, an understanding was reached on the continuation of HHLA's existing strategy. HHLA will thus remain a European logistics company.
The planned sustainable reorganization of the container segment and the expansion of the European intermodal network, in particular with regard to METRANS, will be driven forward with a focus on Hamburg.... Against this background, we are convinced that the extensive agreements and MSC additional financial commitment emphasize the attractiveness of HHLA and its strategy, as well as MSC's sustained interest in the long-term successful development of the company. It was important for me to explain our motives. I hope my explanations were helpful in evaluating our recommendation. Having said that, I would like to return to the interim results and go into the details of our segment development. Let me start with the figures for our container segment.
As I already mentioned, despite a better Q3 overall, container throughput at HHLA's terminals decreased by 8.5% to 4,455,000 TEU in the first nine months of 2023. Throughput at our terminals in Hamburg fell by 6.9% to 4,286,000 TEU, and thus developed in line with our main competing northwestern ports. This development was mainly driven by lower cargo volumes from the Far East shipping region, especially China. Regarding feeder services, we saw a sharp decline in Swedish and Polish traffic. What's more, well, Russian volumes were completely absent due to sanctions. As a result, the feeder ratio of seaborne handling decreased by 2.1 percentage points to 18.4%. The development of our international container terminals varied.
Our Odessa terminal is operational, but still closed for seaborne container handling, except for grain vessels covered by the Black Sea Grain Initiative. The container terminal, TK Estonia, showed a favorable development, but was unable to match the strong prior year volume trend, which was driven by extra cars at the terminal as an alternative to Russian ports. We also recorded a positive development at our terminal in Trieste. However, it was unable to fully offset the overall decline in volumes. In total, the international terminals reported a decrease in volume of 36%. The segment revenue decreased accordingly by 18.2% year-on-year to EUR 534.3 million. This was mainly due to the decline in volumes and the decrease in storage fees because of shorter dwell times at the Hamburg container terminals.
As you all know, in the same period last year, storage fees had increased significantly as a result of disrupted supply chains. In addition, the closure of CTO in Odessa, as well as the transfer of an intragroup company from the pro forma holding segment to the container segment, also had a negative impact on revenue. EBIT costs went down by 4.6% compared to the previous year. This was primarily the result of significant lower personal expenses, the ongoing closure of CTO, and additional other operating income from the reversal of other liabilities for ship delays at the Hamburg container terminals in 2022. By contrast, expenses for energy and maintenance services increased sharply in some assets, in some cases. EBIT costs at the Trieste terminal rose due to additional cargo volumes compared to the first nine months of the previous year.
The integration of HHLA personnel services into the container segment also had a negative impact on earnings. Against this backdrop, EBIT fell by 77.6% to EUR 27.3 million, while the EBIT margin dropped by 13.5 percentage points to 5.1%. So, now let's turn now into the intermodal segment. The economic slowdown of the first nine months also took its toll on the hinterland. As a result, container transport fell by 3.4 percentage points to 1,222,000 TEUs compared to the previous year. With regard to rail transport, all major routes were affected by the decline, especially Polish traffic. In total, rail transport decreased by 1.6% to 1,037,000 TEU. Road transport was severely higher impacted and showed a decline by 12.4%.
With an increase of 8% to EUR 465.8 million, revenue growth outperformed the volume development. This was driven by an adjusted pricing level in the previous year as a consequence of increased costs for the purchase of services, especially energy. However, EBIT fell by 4.1% to EUR 61.4 million, mainly due to lower transport volumes. The EBIT margin was still in double figures at 13.2%. Under the economic circumstances, a very good result. Let's have a look now at the logistics segment, where we have pooled our vehicle logistics and consultancy divisions, as well as business activities with which HHLA aims to tap new growth fields. In the reporting period, the consolidated companies reported revenue of EUR 59 million, and thus exceeded the prior year figure by 4%.
This positive development was mainly driven by a leasing company for the intermodal sector, not yet included in the prior year period, which was able to more than offset a moderate decline in vehicle logistics. Nevertheless, the operating results amounted to EUR -0.8 million in the reporting period. While the previous year was particularly burdened by an impairment of around EUR 4 million for new activities, our activities in leasing and automation contributed to the improvement in earnings in the current reporting period. At equity, earnings declined by 20.3% to EUR 2.1 million after the first nine months of 2023. Coming back to the Port L ogistics subgroup as a whole, let's have a closer look at our cash flow development.
Cash flow from operating activities decreased by around EUR 52.2 million to EUR 156 million as of September 30, 2023. This was largely due to the year-on-year decrease in provisions for pensions, owing to higher interest rates and the smaller increase in trade liabilities and other liabilities. The decrease in trade receivables and other assets, as well as lower income tax payments, had an opposing effect. Investing activities resulted in a net cash outflow of EUR 182.5 million , which was noticeably above the prior year figure. This development was largely due to payments for investments in large-scale equipment at the Hamburg container terminals with regard to our efficiency program, as well as rolling stock for our rail business and lower payments for short-term deposits.
As a result, free cash flow of the Port Logistics subgroup was negative, at -EUR 26.6 million. Cash flow from financing activities totaled EUR 37.3 million, due mainly to the increase in new loans taken out compared to the same period last year, as well as proceeds from the sale of minority shareholding in CTT to COSCO. In addition, dividends were paid to non-controlling shareholders in the prior year period. Overall, our available liquidity as of the end of September 2023 remained at a robust level of EUR 168.6 million. Ladies and gentlemen, HHLA's economic development in the first nine months of 2023 was largely in line with our expectations.
In those markets of importance to the port logistics subgroup, the post-pandemic economic recovery in the current financial year has been weaker than forecast by the leading economic institutes at the beginning of the year. HHLA's business performance reflects this market sentiment. The sharp decline in volumes recorded in the first half of 2023 in the container segment abated in the first quarter of the current year, but remained challenging for container transport. Against this background, we continue to assume a significant year-on-year decline in container throughput for the port logistics subgroup. With regard to container transport, we've had to lower our expectations and now expect a moderate decline in volumes. In terms of revenue development, a significant decrease is still expected for the port logistics subgroup.
This development is the result of the strong volume-related decrease in revenue of the container segment, which cannot be offset by significant increase in revenue of the intermodal segment. EBIT is still expected to range from EUR 100 million - EUR 120 million, and is most likely to be at the lower end. Within this range, a strong decrease is still anticipated for the container segment, while a moderate year-on-year decrease in segment EBIT is now expected for the intermodal segment in light of the lower volume development. Overall, expectations at group level remain unchanged. A significant decrease in revenue is forecast, with EBIT of between EUR 115 million - EUR 135 million. To further increase efficiency and expand capacity in the container and intermodal segments, investments in the first 9 months of the year were higher than originally expected.
Capital expenditure in the port logistics subgroup is therefore now expected to be in the range of EUR 240 million-EUR 290 million. In the container segment, investments will focus on the efficient use of existing terminal space in the port of Hamburg and the expansion of foreign terminals, and in the intermodal segment, on the expansion of the group's own transport and handling capacity. Ladies and gentlemen, with this outlook, I would like to close my remarks on our financial results for the first nine months, 2023. I would be happy to take your questions now.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin our question -and- nswer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you are using speaker equipment today, please leave the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. First question is from Nikolas Mauder of Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, and thanks for taking the question. I have three, if I may. First one, I understand that the guidance is still, the EBIT guidance for the group is still on reported EBIT, and that it will likely include a positive one-off in Q4 related to a real estate sale. So the first question would be, are you willing to quantify what that effect might be in the fourth quarter? The second question is that on an underlying basis, by excluding all the positive one-offs that we've seen so far this year and are still expected here, it seems like the guidance implies a sequential earnings uplift in Q3. I'm wondering, what drives that, in your opinion? Is that a cost-based improvement, or is it coming from volumes?
Finally, have you noticed a different behavior of your customers since the MSC announcement, that there was a lot of, let's say, voices around the announcement, and perhaps people were a bit doubting your neutrality or the business neutrality. So have you noticed any different behavior? Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much. So first of all, with regard to our EBIT guidance, so we had no one-offs in Q3, and we are expecting, as you mentioned correctly, a one-off in the real estate from the real estate segment. It's a lower end of a two-digit million EUR, but lower end. We had in the third quarter better than expected, let's say, outcome. This was fueled or caused by two elements, a slightly better volume than the first and the second quarter, and as well, a very rigid management of cost base that we have applied since Q2, and basically has shown as well some positive results.
Your third question, with regard to the different behavior of customers, I would like to comment a little bit more in detail on this, because first of all, once the announcement was done by MSC, obviously there have been a lot of emotions in the market. Emotions, with regard to our competitors, and people of the industry. What we have done, in the meantime, is, first of all, to have a negotiated business combination agreement.
In this business combination agreement, as I mentioned before, the neutrality of the overall business model within HHLA, as well as the continuation of the strategic outlook, and the strategic development of HHLA, where neutrality of customers, so to treat everybody in the same way and not being a dedicated terminal service provider, but a multi-user concept, was confirmed. And this is something that we have not only put into the business agreement, but as well put into writing to customers. We have talked to them, and obviously, before the first news and now, after November sixth, and the open remarks to our business combination agreement, we were able to calm down the situation.
We will continue to have the trust of our customers, and we continue to work at its best service to prove that what is legally written and binding is as well something that we are living on a day-to-day basis. It was now a long answer to a short question. So far, we are not observing any different behavior of the customers, but obviously trust needs to be earned on a daily basis.
Very good. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by the one on your telephone keypad. There are no further questions.
Yeah. Let me just to be precise with regard to the one-off in Q4. Even if it's a warehouse that we are selling, so the one-off will be in the port logistics and not in the real estate segment, because it does belong to the logistics. Yeah, just for clarification. And as I understand that there are no other questions, ladies and gentlemen, for HHLA, only a sustainable logistics network can meet the growing demands. We will therefore continue to focus on our strategy based on sustainability and work even harder to overcome the current challenges in order to emerge from this crisis stronger than ever. Thank you very much for your interest and your ongoing support for HHLA.
Please stay healthy and take care, and hope to see you soon again to talk to you in a more peaceful world. Goodbye.