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THE big Icelandic fish carrier Eimskip has just announced a huge first quarter loss of 101 million euros (around £80 million sterling), with its frozen fish and food UK transport company shouldering most of the blame.
Last week Eimskip announced plans to dispose of Innovate Holdings which it bought just two years ago.
The revenues for the quarter were 380 million euros of which 154 million euros was from transport activities. Income from cold storage operations totalled 226 million euros. The management of Eimskip said it was now working on a plan to decrease the debt of the company. Part of that strategy is to review strategic alternatives for Versacold Atlas in North America.
Eimskip president and chief executive Gylfi Sigfusson said: “The second quarter was another solid quarter in revenue growth and margins, and was in line with our expectations. We saw a strong performance from our core transportation businesses in Russia, and the Baltic and North-Atlantic regions, as well as solid performances from our cold store business in the US and Canada."
He added: "Despite the strong underlying performance of our business, the write-off related to Innovate in the UK had a significant impact on our bottom line, which negatively impacted our financing costs. The board of Eimskip has announced its intention to significantly improve Eimskip’s financial strength before year-end and will evaluate strategic alternatives for Versacold Atlas. We are committed to bringing our equity ratio above the 25 per cent mark by the end of the year. This will lead to the underlying aspects of our business to become more visible and lower finance costs.”
www.fishupdate.com is published by Special Publications. Special Publications also publish FISHupdate magazine, Fish Farmer, the Fish Industry Yearbook, the Scottish Seafood Processors Federation Diary, the Fish Farmer Handbook and a range of wallplanners.
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