The leading passenger shipping company on the Baltic Sea AS Tallink Grupp managed to increase the unaudited consolidated revenue by 4 percent to 943.9 million Euros in the financial year 2012. According to the company's release, the unaudited net profit reached 56.3 million Euros, which is 49 percent or 18.6 million Euros more than the previous year.
The main contribution for the growth in total revenue in 2012 came from the increase from shops and restaurants sales by nearly EUR 30 million. The ticket sales have been under pressure throughout the 2012 year due to bad weather and tight competition. The positive development on shop and restaurant sales continued also in the fourth quarter showing 6% increase on absolute terms and 5% increase per passenger basis when compared to the fourth quarter of the previous year. Noticeable impact to the year’s net profit came from the earlier closure of Finland-Germany route and the following profitable charter of the related vessels.
In the fourth quarter (1st of October- 31st of December) of the 2012 financial year the company carried 2.1 million passengers, which is 1 percent more compared to the same period last year. The consolidated revenue of the fourth quarter increased by 4 percent to 222.8 million Euros. The net profit of the fourth quarter was 5.7 million Euros compared to the net profit of 0.6 million Euros in the same period last year.
During 2012 Tallink has focused on upgrading and improving the visibility and appearance in the electronic sales channels. The new consumer marketing web pages were upgraded. Throughout the year the new version of online booking engine was developed and is currently in the testing phase. The customer friendliness, usability, convenience and price transparency of online booking have been the main focus areas. Tallink’s mobile booking application became available for Android and Apple mobile platforms.
In 2012 financial year the interest bearing bank debt was reduced by 119.2 million Euros or 12.4 percent. The net debt at the end of 2012 was 774 million Euros and the net debt ratio to EBITDA was 4.68. At the end of December 2012 the Group had nearly 66 million Euros in cash and equivalents and the total of unused credit lines were 50 million Euros. The total liquidity, cash and unused credit facilities at the end of the fourth quarter were 116 million Euros providing a strong position for sustainable operations.
AS Tallink Grupp and its subsidiaries transported a total of 9.26 million passengers in the 2012 financial year which is 1.3 percent more than year before.