|
|
World Fuel Services Corporation (INT) |
|
|
|
CEOCFO Current
Issue |
This is a printer friendly page! World Fuel Services is uniquely
positioned to be a key resource to clients on both the supply and the demand side of
supplying fuel to airlines and shipping companies World Fuel Services Corporation (NYSE: INT),
headquartered in Miami, Florida, is a global leader in the downstream marketing and
financing of aviation and marine fuel products and related services. As the marketer of
choice in the aviation and shipping industries, World Fuel Services provides fuel and
services at more than 2,000 airports and seaports worldwide. With over 30 offices
strategically located throughout the world, World Fuel Services offers its customers a
value-added outsource service for the supply, quality control, logistical support and
price risk management of marine and aviation fuel. “The Company
is almost twenty years old and it has two main businesses, which are closely related, and
they are supplying fuel to ocean going ships and jet planes on a global basis, anywhere in
the world.” Offers Mr. Francis X. Shea, CFO and
Exec. VP of World Fuel Services Corporation, “We do business
with more than a thousand airlines and over a thousand shipping companies each year and we
do it in the same number, over 1000, airports and seaports around the world. Slightly more
than half of our business is done out of the United States. It is done in close to equal
proportions in Asia, Europe and North America. It is truly a global business. We currently
operate from thirty-two offices in seventeen countries. We are leaders in our industry as
intermediaries in the commercial fuels business around the world.” “In the marine market, we are the largest buyer and seller of marine
fuel in the world.” Says Mr. Shea, sharing some
thought on their position in the marketplace, “Nobody buys and
sells more than we do, not even the major oil companies. As a group, they buy and sell
more than we do, but not individually. In aviation we are in the top ten of sellers. We
are one of the biggest buyers and sellers; if you put the two together we are clearly one
of the biggest buyers and sellers of these fuels in the world.” Explaining the
relationship between the supply and the demand side Mr. Shea
tells us, “Fuel companies are very happy with us; they consider
us in most cases to be a very valuable and strategically useful client and we view them as
clients too. We aggregate their demand for them and we de-risk their business for them.
Thus we have clients on both the supply and demand side. We view the airlines and shipping
companies as important clients or customers, depending on who they are and they view us as
important providers of a critical service. In both the shipping and the aviation industry,
the cost of fuel is usually the second or third largest operating expense that these
companies have. By and large, they have recognized that we do our thing very well.”
Addressing investors Mr. Shea states, “I
think what current investors like about us is that we are the leader in our industry, and
we have an extremely strong position. We have kind of a franchise and we protect and take
care of it quite actively. It is a business that is reliable. We are tied to international
trade and so the risk is that we hit some bad years when there isn’t much volume,
basically the risk that international trade goes away – this I think is quite
unlikely. As long as goods are moving between countries, ships and airplanes are going to
be needed to carry them; there is just no other way to get it there. You can move stuff
between U.S., Mexico, and Canada by truck as you can among the EU countries, but most
goods move by ships and airplanes. We are supplying fuel to them both, all around the
world, and to private parties too. ” |
|
|
|
To view Releases highlight & left click on the company name!
|
|
