Eimskip, the struggling Icelandic container shipping and logistics group, lost $54.3 million after tax in the first quarter of 2009 compared with $52.5 million a year ago as revenue slumped by nearly 24 percent to $177 million on sharply lower imports into the Atlantic island nation.
The increased loss also reflected a worse-than-expected performance by Containerships, a 65 percent-owned Finnish container line active in the Baltic region.
Eimskip, which lost $875 million in its financial year, which ended in October, due mainly to asset write downs and loan guarantees to a failed UK airline, said it expects to complete its restructuring by the end of June.
"The goal of Eimskip's management is to secure the long term operating basis of the company's transport sector and to focus on operations involving the North Atlantic," chief executive Gylfi Sigfusson said.
Sigfusson said the sale of two Canadian cold storage companies acquired for over $1 billion in 2006 scheduled for March is taking longer than anticipated "and conditions in financial markets have not helped."
The sale is now likely to be concluded before the end of June albeit at a lower price than originally estimated, Sigfusson said.
The increased loss also reflected a worse-than-expected performance by Containerships, a 65 percent-owned Finnish container line active in the Baltic region.
Eimskip, which lost $875 million in its financial year, which ended in October, due mainly to asset write downs and loan guarantees to a failed UK airline, said it expects to complete its restructuring by the end of June.
"The goal of Eimskip's management is to secure the long term operating basis of the company's transport sector and to focus on operations involving the North Atlantic," chief executive Gylfi Sigfusson said.
Sigfusson said the sale of two Canadian cold storage companies acquired for over $1 billion in 2006 scheduled for March is taking longer than anticipated "and conditions in financial markets have not helped."
The sale is now likely to be concluded before the end of June albeit at a lower price than originally estimated, Sigfusson said.