Finnlines Group’s revenue for January–September slightly up YoY to EUR 450.8 million
Finnlines Group has published its revenue for January–September 2019.
Emanuele Grimaldi, President and CEO, in conjunction with the review:
“The Finnlines Group’s revenue for January–September was EUR 450.8 (447.9 in 2018) million – showing a small increase over the preceding year. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, EBITDA, was EUR 136.8 (129.0) million. The result for the reporting period was EUR 81.8 million in January–September 2019, compared to EUR 75.3 million during the corresponding period in 2018. In spite of the slowdown in the Finnish economic growth, we are still on track to achieve another excellent result.
Reducing fuel consumption and cutting harmful emissions have been one of the key elements of our Group’s strategy for a long time. This requires vast amount of investments, which we carried out during the past years. Technology is an important but not the only solution. Apart from investing in technology, various other actions are needed e.g. in technology and green energy – but also every day actions like fleet changes and route optimisation, fuel monitoring and propulsion improvement and vessel lengthening investments. All these actions and investments – worth around EUR 200 million, which have been completed – were aimed at improving energy efficiency and thus reducing emissions. The results have been distinctive and all of the above have contributed to lower emissions in CO2, SOx and NOx.
We have an embedded philosophy within the Grimaldi Group systematically optimise our daily operations, enhance the use of our fleet and the return on capital employed and, more importantly, invest in green technology, already long before and, also, beyond regulatory guidelines. Our engineers, with a very long track-record, have analysed the ways and technology and required measures how to save fuel and thus lower the overall emissions. At present, Finnlines have two major newbuilding programmes running in which our engineers have contributed to make these vessels flagships, both in terms of size and technology. We have ordered three ultra-clean ro-ro vessels, which are designed to produce zero emission in port and aimed at pushing beyond the green scores of ro-ro in the Baltic. Furthermore, we are ordering two Superstar ro-pax vessels, which will be best and most environmentally friendly units in their category – half consumption and double capacity, as well as other green features. Approximately 90% of Finland’s exports and 80% of imports is transported via seaways and therefore it is worth emphasising that our ro-pax vessels offer to customers – both to corporate clients and also to passengers – a very sustainable liner service, since our ro-pax vessels combine cargo and passenger traffic in an eco-efficient way and our high utilisation rates in those ro-pax routes guarantee them the possibility to carry their goods or travel in a sustainable and responsible way.
To continue to sail ahead of the waves, Finnlines has the right strategy. Firstly, we are investing in larger and environmentally sound vessels, thus providing our customers most modern vessels to grow together with us. Secondly, we are on track on our financial performance and Finnlines Group is a solid company with 56.0% equity ratio and with Net debt to EBITDA at 2.4. Thirdly, we continue to invest in sustainable development with our “next-generation” vessels. It is worth mentioning that Finnlines’ EUR 500 million investment programme must be among the most sizeable investments by a Finnish company published recently.”
Finnlines is a leading shipping operator of ro-ro and passenger services in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. The Company is a part of the Grimaldi Group, one of the world’s largest operators of ro-ro vessels and the largest operator of the Motorways of the Sea in Europe for both passengers and freight. This affiliation enables Finnlines to offer liner services to and from any destination in the Mediterranean, West Africa as well as the Atlantic coast of both North and South America.
