Rickmers Paints a Bleak Picture

Rickmers Group recorded EUR 131.5 million (USD 146.9 million) loss in the first half of this year due to the weak operating results and EUR 124 million in extraordinary net impairments on vessels.

Rickmers, a service provider in the maritime transport sector and a containership owner based in Hamburg and Singapore, saw a 13.9 percent decrease in its revenues in the first half of this year, that amounted to EUR 249.3 million (USD 278 million), against EUR 289.6 million during the same period in 2015.

According to the company, factors that influenced the group’s revenue decline are a persistently strained market situation, expiring high-margin charter contracts, follow-on charters at the prevalently low market rates, lower freight earnings, and a sharper decline in capacity utilitization in the project cargo business.

Furthermore, in the Maritime Assets business segment, the group generated revenues of EUR 172.9 million during the six-month period of this year, compared to EUR 199.6 million in the first half of the last year.

The Maritime Services segment reported revenues of EUR 65.2 and the Rickmers-Linie segment revenues of EUR 64.9 million.

In the first half of 2016, Rickmers reached an agreement with one of its main banking partners on the early term extension to 2020/2021 of a EUR 520 million portion of the group’s existing loan package.

“In view of the lowered forecasts for global economic growth as well as the global container trade, the Rickmers Group currently sees no sign of a macroeconomic recovery in the second half of the year. This situation is reflected by the development of charter and freight rates, which the management sees as likely to remain at their current low levels,” Rickmers Group said, confirming its outlook for 2016.