Dry bulk, towage and ferry company Pacific Basin acknowledged it suffered an unaudited net loss of US$196 million in the first half of the year compared with a net profit of US$3 million in the same period last year.
The company said first half results were impacted by a US$190 million impairment of its Roll-on/Roll-off (RoRo) investment, a weaker dry bulk spot market and a strong US$14 million contribution from PB Towage.
Pacific Basin said that its balance sheet retained substantial buying power with cash and deposits of US$657 million and net borrowings of US$196 million.
The company has fully funded vessel capital commitments of US$262 million, all for dry bulk vessels.
Mats Berglund, CEO of Pacific Basin, said the company's core dry bulk shipping business had again delivered a respectable performance in the context of the ongoing poor market. "PB Towage has delivered increasingly profitable results giving rise to the largest segment contribution to the Group results during the period. Our RoRo performance and future prospects have been hard hit by the severe weakness in Europe," Berglund said.
Berglund added that "as a consequence of our reassessment of the prospects for our RoRo business, we no longer regard RoRo shipping as a core activity of the Pacific Basin group. We remain committed to our towage business which is performing well and in line with our expectations. We reaffirm that the majority of our future investments will be in the dry bulk shipping sector where our long-standing expertise lies and where we are most confident of delivering a world-class service and sustainable growth and shareholder value over the long term."