Moby

Ferry-Swap Deal between DFDS and Moby Fails

Danish ferry and logistics company DFDS and its Italian counterpart Moby have canceled an agreement related to Amsterdam-Newcastle ferries.

Moby Aki; Source: Wikimedia – under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license; Image by: Lucarelli

In September 2019, DFDS reached the agreement with Moby to acquire two ferries, Moby Wonder and Moby Aki, for deployment on the Amsterdam-Newcastle route.

Moby would in turn acquire the two passenger ferries currently operating on Amsterdam-Newcastle, King Seaways and Princess Seaways.

“The agreement was expected to be completed in the second half of October 2019 but Moby has unfortunately not been able to meet the delivery terms of the agreement. The agreement has therefore been cancelled,” DFDS said in a statement.

The company added it would continue to explore solutions for a renewal of the ferries on the Amsterdam-Newcastle route.

Following the contract cancellation, DFDS’s full-year outlook for special items decreased to DKK -30 million (USD -4.46 million) from previous DKK 70 million as the latter included an expected accounting profit of around DKK 100 million from the sale of the ferry pair.

The investment outlook for 2019 has also been reduced to around DKK 2.8 billion from previous DKK 3.4 billion.