DFDS A/S (CPH:DFDS)
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May 11, 2026, 4:59 PM CET
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Earnings Call: Q1 2020
May 7, 2020
Welcome to the DFDS Interreport Q1 twenty twenty. Today, I'm pleased to present CEO, Torben Karlsson and CFO, Irina Deacon. Please begin your meeting.
Good morning, Karina and I are, as usual, joined by Son Bonhalt, our Head of Investor Relations. Throughout our system, we continue to deliver reliable and efficient freight, ferry and logistics services despite the COVID-nineteen situation. Our strong network and our highly experienced people have helped us to keep all businesses operating. The expectation is that our passenger business, where travel and border travel restrictions and border closings have caused suspension of the two tax routes and thus of passengers will, of course, be the exception. We this is where we've had to close down operation.
Our financial position remains strong. We've used our strength to secure additional liquidity reserves, and we'll come back to that. With this brief introduction, I will hand over to Karina.
Yes. If we look at Slide four, let me talk you through the Q1 results. The first quarter can be really split in two parts. We had a quite a good start to the year. And after the first two months, the results, they were overall in line with expectations.
As anticipated when we started the year, the freight volumes linked to The UK were, for the first February 2020, lower than last year, as you all recall that volumes in 2019 were boosted by The UK stockpiling. We also saw that the freight volumes between Europe and Turkey were above twenty nineteen for the first February 2020, which was also what we expected. And then came March. And in the mid March, we were all hit by the COVID nineteen effects. And, obviously, that had an immediate impact on our activities and thereby on the results.
So when we look at the quarter overall, our revenue was down 1%. It was significantly impacted by the suspension of the two passenger routes that Thorben just mentioned and also the lower number of passengers on other routes, not least the channel. We did also see a decrease in the freight volumes as the manufacturing plant suspended operations, not least in the automotive industry. That meant that the effect of earnings was more severe than on the top line, so we report a decline in EBITDA before special items of 10%, arriving at EUR $610,000,000, which was only slightly ahead of where we were two years ago. It's worth noticing that more than half of the decline in EBITDA came from the passenger business after the suspension of the routes.
In addition to the passenger impact, the decline came from increased earnings in the comparison period in Q1 twenty nineteen from The UK, but also from negative impact on freight volumes in March and a lower result from the special cargo in logistics, and I'll come back to that shortly. Let's turn to Slide five. Just a few words on the P and L and other KPIs. As mentioned, COVID-nineteen only had a limited impact on revenue with a decline of 1%. It was a net result of the impact from the COVID-nineteen and then the positive impact from the two acquisitions we did in December, and also a positive impact from a new bunker surcharge model, which we implemented in The Mediterranean from the beginning of the year after the transition to the new sulfur rules.
As mentioned, EBITDA was down 10%. And together with an increase in depreciation of $31,000,000 we saw EBIT before special items being down by 43%. We had a little bit of headwind on the finance costs, which were lower by EUR 40,000,000 from positive variances on currency, mostly from the Norwegian kroner and the British pound versus euro. All in all, our profit before tax decreased 36% to EUR 96,000,000. On the balance sheet, we saw a slight increase in invested capital of 2% compared to year end, mainly due to work the higher working capital.
We are, of course, monitoring that very closely, but fortunately, we don't see a significant increase in our trade receivables. Return on invested capital was 7.3%, a little bit down from year end of 8.1%, but clearly significantly down from the 2019. Net interest bearing debt went up slightly also from year end following the significant CapEx investments we have for the year also in Q1 related to the new buildings, dockings and scrubber installations. All in all, that meant a slight increase in our leverage, which we reported as 3.5x at the end of Q1. If we turn to Slide six and look into our ferry business.
When we look at the route there, we see a mixed picture with a positive EBIT impact from the Baltics and the Met, whereas we see a rather significant impact from North Sea Channel and, of course,
the passenger business. North Sea was down $42,000,000 compared to last year. They
did have difficult comps due to The UK situation. However, 6% lower volumes were also a result of a bad weather in February and then, of course, the lockdowns that came in March, not least affecting the automotive business in the northern area. The results also included a negative impact from a new route, which we opened in June. If we look at the Baltics, we see a positive impact compared to the quarter of last year. The volumes were slightly down, but we had significantly lower cost, bearing in mind that in the 2019, we had significant excess costs related to dockings and also replacement ferries.
In the channel, we saw the largest decline in EBIT,
very
much linked to the fact that volumes overall were down by 10%. As mentioned a couple of times now, we did expect that, but of course, we were also impacted by the lockdowns that came in the March. And also after a good start in January, February with passenger volumes on level, We saw a significant decline of 22% in March, which, of course, impacted the result in general. If we look at the maps, we saw an improvement in EBIT of $9,000,000 As I mentioned, we started out well with January, February, showing a 10% volume pickup from 2019. However, when we came into March, that was more or less offset by a decline of 12% as market demand slowed down and operations were impacted by travel restrictions for drivers.
Finally, passengers with $20,000,000 lower EBIT, they were, of course, significantly impacted by the suspension of the routes. Turning to Slide seven, having a look at logistics. The logistics results in Q1 were a disappointment. And as you can see, not least in continent, we had a decline from last year. If we look at The Nordics, they were slightly below volumes from last year if we exclude the volumes from the Finnish acquisition, but we did see a generally lower trailer volume in all key corridors.
That meant that EBIT was down $4,000,000 but that was also impacted by the fact that we had lower activity in the specialized services in Sweden, which have a higher earnings. Then when we look at continent, as I mentioned, we did have a significant negative impact from the continent. Again, some reduction was anticipated due to the link to The UK, which mainly impacted Dutch and the German corridor. But we did see our Special Cargo division being further hit. There was a slowdown in the construction sector across Europe, but definitely also in relation to The UK.
And that meant that we saw a decline in volumes of more than 6% on a like for like basis. However, when we look at EBIT, we saw the significant decline mainly from special cargo. And that was, of course, partly to do with the slowdown in the construction business, but we also had some internal inefficiencies in our trucking operations, and we incurred some one off charges amounting to 8,000,000. Finally, UK and Ireland, they saw a decline in units of almost 10%, resulting in a decline in EBIT of 4,000,000. If we look outside the cold chain, the results were actually improving over 2019, but we were hit by two things in the first quarter.
First of all, we had bad weather in the beginning of the year, meaning that there was hardly any fish to catch in Scotland. Later on, when the weather turned better and we could actually catch fish, we saw a lack of demand from overseas markets and also in the catering business, of course, both impacted by the lockdowns. On the positive side, when we look at the logistics business, we saw good results from the two acquisitions, both Fraco in Finland and Hurtzmann in The Netherlands developed as expected. Then I'll pass the word over to you again, Thorben.
Thank you very much. And we will now turn our attention to how we have responded to the COVID-nineteen pandemic and what measures we have taken to keep employees and DFDS healthy through the situation. On employee health, we are following all government guidelines to keep our operational sites and offices safe and reliable, both for our employees and for our customers. We have been swiftly adapting our capacity. I will come back to that on the next slide.
We have moved fast to introduce cost saving initiatives, and we have reduced the CapEx expectation for 2020 by around DKK700 million from DKK2.3 billion to now DKK1.6 billion. We participate in government wage and fixed cost compensation programs across Europe, which, for example, means that we have that the 2,800 people or employees that we have sent home are on different programs introduced by governments throughout Europe. Finally, we have secured sufficient liquidity to weather the crisis and also to pursue opportunities that may arise from the crisis. On Page 10, more details on what we have done to adapt our capacities to the lower demand. All our 20 ferry routes that mainly carry freight are operating.
But volumes have been impacted since mid March, as is evident from the table to the right, which means that we have responded through a reduction of capacity and cost by conducting fewer sailings and even laying off ferries. So in addition to the four passenger ferries that we laid up in connection with the suspension of our passenger services in March, we have laid up another 12 of our freight varies to make sure that we have the right capacity, of course, observing that we also need a certain frequency to maintain a reliable and attractive service for our customers throughout our system. But in total, 16 ferries out of a pre COVID-nineteen level of just about 50. So a significant reduction in capacity that, except for the passenger business, have meant that we have been able to continue to service our customers everywhere throughout Europe. Turning to Page 11.
Suspension of mid our two passenger routes, one from Copenhagen to Oslo and the other from Amsterdam to Newcastle, was necessary as border closings and travel restrictions were introduced. We still have passenger capacity in place on the channel and in the Baltic Sea, where we operate road packs and day ferries. But of course, it is only for essential travel that the capacity remains open. In our forecast that we'll come back to, we have assumed some return of passengers from August on all routes that can carry passengers and reopening of our passenger routes as well. Although passenger normally represents 16% to 17% of our revenue, with the most complex of our business completely locked down, we can see an impact of our on our outlook coming 60% from the passenger side despite the relatively low normal revenue weight.
Turning to Page 12. What have we done on our liquidity? We decided when the virus broke out and the consequences became clear to approach our banks. And we have committed additional liquidity facilities to the tune of 1,000,000,000. We have also had a discussion with our banks around the covenants that are included in our loan agreement relating to the UN RowRow acquisition in 2018.
And these have been adjusted to reflect our new situation and our new view of the results, the coming quarters and years so that we with these two initiatives, can put all our attention to how we manage through the crisis and pursue the opportunities rather than having to worry about whether we have enough liquidity or whether we breach any covenant with banks. With this, let's turn to the outlook on Page 14, where the headline is that our 2020 EBITDA is likely to be reduced towards €2,000,000,000 down from last year's 3,600,000,000 so a significant development. We suspended the outlook March 18 when there was no visibility to how 2020 would end. Now introducing an updated outlook, but only at a group EBITDA level and for investments. Obviously, this outlook builds on a number of important assumptions, especially on how freight volumes develop for the remainder of the year and what the timing of lifting of travel restrictions on passengers will be.
Full year, we now assume negative 15% development on freight volumes. And you've seen in Q1, we are down 7%, partly driven by the ramp up, of course, of volumes Q1 to U. K. Last year, but a significant turning to the worst the rest of the year compared to Q1 where COVID-nineteen was not a major factor. Passenger volumes, as said before, we assume that they slowly ramp up from August and maybe on the channel already from July.
Conclusion with this view of the near future is that our EBITDA could approach 2,000,000,000 for 2020. At the same time, as also mentioned on the previous slide, we have reduced our investment outlook to now €1,600,000,000 for the year. Page 15. DFDS is well positioned to meet the challenges and opportunities that have come from the COVID-nineteen situation. We have demonstrated a fast adaptation to the new situation.
Our organization is responding extremely well to the new challenges. And we begin to see the outline of a way out of the crisis and also an outline of new opportunities that come from structural market changes, opportunities that we are well positioned to pursue. With this, we will turn to questions from the audience.
And the first question comes from the line of Dan Togo from Carnegie. First
question regarding the compensation schemes. How much do you allow for that in your guidance? And can you elaborate maybe a bit on the amounts and how it's distributed on the passenger business and on the channel? That's the first question.
We have sent home 2,800 people. The programs vary from country to country. The main impact or the reason for the sending home of the 2,800 people are from the two closed down passenger routes and the suspension of passenger services on, for example, the channel. So the biggest part of the compensation comes from the passenger business. We have probably included to the tune of just over DKK 100,000,000 in these forecasts.
And could that amount be higher than that possibly? Or what is, sort of, say, the the possible outcome here?
This is based on what we know now and what governments have introduced at this stage. If programs are extended or improved, then that number would change.
And then on your financial leverage, you have more than €12,000,000,000 net debt right now and EBITDA approaching €2,000,000,000 Your previous covenants was at 4.5 times. Does this new negotiations, does this with the banks, does this include a leverage up to six times? And what is sort of, say, the effects of you breaching? And what is also the headroom to pursue these opportunities you talk about, Tobin, if these if they arise, could think of could maybe imagine that the life of Mobi has huge problem right now and that could reintroduce one of these initiatives to get hold of these carriers. I don't know if that is totally off the sheet right now, but I'm just thinking a bit loud here.
So what are the opportunities to pursue these opportunities? And what happens if you breach, so to say?
We as mentioned, we have now adjusted the covenant to reflect our view of the situation. So it's not an option to or a likelihood that we breach our covenants. The opportunities, we are not being more specific on those at this stage. All companies are adjusting to the new situation. We can just see, as I also mentioned, the outline of opportunities that could arise.
We have not qualified them sorry, quantified them yet or done anything more specific. We just note that we have the strength to pursue such opportunities should they materialize.
Could you elaborate a bit about how much firepower you have from this?
How much what? Sorry.
How much firepower you have for this?
No. We we will not we will not go into that detail at at this stage. And again, there is not a specific opportunity that we are talking about here. It is small and big movements across our different markets that we can see will turn into opportunities. These can be smaller and larger in nature.
Okay. And then a question on the CapEx side, which you have reduced now from these 2,300,000,000.0 and to 1.6 this €700,000,000 what is it you have taken out? And will that amount just appear again in 2021, 2022 instead?
Partly. One of the things we have done is that we expect our sixth newbuild to move into '21 instead of '20. So that one will come in '21 instead. Other than that, I think it's more of a movement, what you say you take from this year and move it into next year, but then next year, we'll move to the year after. So it's more of a it will come, of course, but we can postpone it somewhat.
And then there is a little bit of things where we said, okay, you simply don't have to do that. But as if I give you an example, when we look into our logistics business, you can say, is it now that we exchange a big part of our fleet and enter into long term leasing obligations? Or should we just extend for six months and then we can do it later? Those are the sort of things that we have looked into.
Okay. And then just a final question from my side. Your guidance, these €2,000,000,000 that you could approach, is that it sounds a bit like this is the worst case. That around €2,000,000,000 Or is that what you see realistic right now? Or is it a worst case scenario?
We always guide realistically then.
Thank you.
Otherwise, I think we would be in trouble with the financial authority in Denmark.
I see the point. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Markus Belander from Nordea. Please go ahead. Your line is
now open.
Thank you. Yes, I want to follow-up on that whether guidance is realistic or not. I mean, suppose it could be realistic, but still conservative. And I'm when I'm crunching the numbers on this, it seems like you're implicitly guiding for volumes to be down about 17% or 18% in the period May through December. Is that your is that the scenario you have included in your guidance?
That's more or less accurate, Markus. And that's, of course, on a flat line. That's a slower now, and we expect it to be better towards the end of the year.
Okay. But doesn't that seem like a conservative scenario given that April is down 24% and that arguably will be one of the worst months?
We, of course, lack some visibility here, Markus, totally agree. We monitor closely as car factories reopen. The strategy of the different countries throughout Europe on reopening of the economies will impact this number. If there's a more aggressive strategy on reopenings, you may very well be correct that the drop in volumes will be less.
Okay. Thank you. And also regarding this scenario, you include for your passenger ships. You you say they will you expect a gradual ramp up from August. I I'm I'm just wondering what what this is based on.
Could we not see passengers returning to the passenger ships earlier, or is there something that do authorities view them as, I don't know, are are you not allowed to to open those or reopen the routes because authorities We were
could, we could, in principle, operate those Since they are, at least Copenhagen, Oslo, more than 90% passenger based and the borders in both Denmark and Norway are closed, we don't operate them. We have large spaces on board. If there were even if there were restrictions of 500 people or whatever, we would not be categorized as one event. We are subject to other rules and regulations.
So we do not think that it is a challenge for us to reopen and travel with passengers also before that, but it requires that the borders open and, of course, that people want to travel again. And there we have taken, you could call that a conservative view that we will open our dedicated passenger routes in August with limited capacity and volumes. It also makes our forecast less vulnerable, you can say, because it means that July and June, a lot of August is not coming, which is where we traditionally would make quite a good chunk of the money on our passenger business. So even if we are slightly wrong and it will only be September, the impact on our forecast is limited.
Okay, understood. And then final question, and sorry for harping on this, the net debt to EBITDA, I'm just thinking if you make 2,000,000,000 of EBITDA and you have 1,600,000,000.0 of CapEx, I mean, there's barely enough money to pay interests on your loans. Are banks really okay with this? They're okay to lend you to pay interest, so to speak?
I'm not sure they look at it like that. But we have we could easily have taken up more liquidity than what we have decided to do. So there's plenty of interest from all our core banks and also new banks to give us money.
Give you money. That sounds great.
Expect it back, Markus, unfortunately.
Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you for clarifying that. That's great.
Thanks. That's all for me.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Lars Heindorff from SEB. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Yes. Morning. Head off actually Davideya coming up and giving the guidance. I know you have some assumptions behind that, which is, I think, is fine given the uncertainty. But the first question is regarding the disclosure you gave on the current volumes.
I'm sure that you have an idea about how things developed. And I just wanted to hear we can see the numbers for April. Have those numbers in April, is that sort of stabilized at that level? Have you seen any improvement throughout the month? Or how are things looking at the moment?
April has been steadily bad. But we knew that early on in April due to the especially on the automotive, there's been some visibility because all factories have announced their closures and when they would reopen, etcetera. Where our numbers are particularly hard hit is on our Sweden business and our Turkey business, which are relatively automotive intensive. So it is it's not reasonable to say that we've seen a gradual improvement through April, but it has been as expected from the April. And car manufacturers have announced openings that they have also carried through.
And we do now see that, for example, Volvo, which, of course, is important to us, have started producing cars again, both in Gothenburg and Ghent. So we this forecast is based on that April and maybe some of May is probably the low point in terms of demand and production. So I don't know if that answers your question, Lars.
Yes, it does. That's very fine. Have been getting any indications from the automotive industry? I know that I mean, it's not only Volvo that is starting up. I think Volkswagen is starting up as well, Daimler.
I don't know if they are customers of yours, but they are probably not starting up with 100%. It will be sort of a gradual bounce back, if you can call it that. I assume that is also what you have in assumed in the guidance that you've been giving.
This is what we have in. And some places, they've started three shift production. In other places, it's much less. We are approached typically seven, ten days before changes to production schedules because the factories rely on us, of course, also being ready, whether we do cross docking or warehousing or transportation services for them. We have all the major car manufacturers in Turkey, our customers and then, of course, select European ones as well.
Okay. And then regarding the passenger division. I hear what you say, and I can read the statements that you have released this morning. But I just want to get kind of sort of a feeling for what will happen if something goes wrong and that you're not able sort of to resume operations in August. Because if I recall correctly, then I think it's July, August, I don't know about September as well, but at least August, which are the biggest month for you guys in terms of pasture volumes.
Will that change the guidance materially if you instead assume that it will resume operations in October or something like that?
We have I think I mentioned it briefly, was it to Dan Togo's question. We have and thank you for complementing us on coming out with an outlook. I can say that the passenger business is probably the main reason we do that so that the market can get a view on what how that business is impacting us. And with the assumptions we put in now with a very slow start in August, This means that, basically, we have have said there is no main season this year in passenger.
Okay.
When you get into less September, but but thereafter, it is it is a lower impact that that you see. Of course, we are completely if we were to be completely shut down, we have some fixed cost. We have some people cost. But in the bigger scheme of things, it's a manageable situation also in relation to this outlook that we have sent out.
Okay. And then regarding the financial situation, which is I understand now with the new agreement that you have with the bank that you state that the covenants are no longer an issue. I'm just I sense you are not willing to disclose new covenants. So I'm going to ask in a different way, which is and hopefully, you can help me. But what I'm aiming for is to get a feeling for is this is there any time limit on those covenants?
I mean, I. E, is this just about this year? Or is there anything built into those agreements that you need to reduce your net debt to EBITDA into 2021 at a certain speed or anything like that?
Now that you asked so nicely, I can disclose or we can disclose that in 2022, we will be returning to normal in this agreement. So we have sufficient time to have our business recovering so that we have only asked for a limited period of time for these adjustments to our covenants. There are no restrictions that the banks have put on us to try to reduce debt or anything like that. Those we have it has been a strict discussion about where the covenant should be.
Okay. And on the debt, do you expect that you will be able to keep the net debt level that you have by the end of the quarter also by the end of this year? Or do you expect that to increase?
Well, you can always do the math, right? We are on EBITDA and our CapEx provided. So I will leave that for your capable Excel sheets.
That's very kind of you. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you. The next question comes from Rory Cullinane from RBC. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Good morning. My first question, I was
wondering if you'd be able to tell us what your passenger volume guidance translates into in terms of year on year decline? Secondly, was wondering if you have sort of any updated views on, what's the right level of leverage in the long term for your business as a result of this? Are you still sort of targeting the two to three times range, in the long term? And then, finally, I was wondering if, there had been any changes beyond what you're communicating in the Baltic Sea in terms of, the competitive landscape. I was wondering if there'd been any you know, how the the more passenger focused ferry operators had responded to the current crisis on on your routes?
Excellent questions. Number one, I think we we guide, yeah. Kane, do you want to
Yes. We don't state it explicitly, but I can say that it amounts to somewhere around a decline of more than half to more than 50% down in passenger volumes when we look across the year.
Okay. Yes. And in terms of financial impact, I think we mentioned that 60% or more of the decline from last year's 3.6 to two comes from the passenger activities, not just the two passenger routes, but also the activities on the channel primarily.
And just to add to that, as you know, channel is a transportation route more than sort of mini break holiday type. So we do expect that to pick up quicker than the other passenger route.
All right. What was the second question?
Long term leverage, are you happy with Yes,
the leverage, exactly. Sorry. We have not changed our financial policy towards the Board of the 2.2 to three times leverage. We have previously communicated that we have no problem approaching four in connection with M and A. Now you can say we can probably expand that to say we would not have a problem of being around four percent if we were on a recovery trend from COVID.
But we certainly do not want to stay where we are and will be in 2020. So when towards the end of 2021, we will begin to see levels that could have been contained in our original agreement. And then during 2022, I would expect that you would see us approaching the normal levels, maybe slightly above three percent. On The Baltics, which is the closest, I guess, we come to a normal Q question. We have seen the least impact from Corona.
A lot of the passengers that we carry in The Baltics are commuting workers, drivers repositioning for their trucks. And we have seen out being around 10% downturn maybe on passengers, 15% maybe, but no dramatic development on the Baltics, which, of course, is not just us, but many of the operators have been doing quite fine throughout the Baltic Sea. We've seen competitors that are heavily passenger dependent suspending services, which have also taken out freight capacity from the market, which we have then benefited from because we have continued with more or less full capacity on the Baltics. So that's also the background for the relatively strong Q1. Going forward for the year, you will not see Baltic being a main contributor to the downturn as far as we can see at the moment.
There are competitors who are struggling a lot, who are heavily depending on passengers, and there are competitors more positioned like ourselves with RoPAC services that are doing quite well.
I don't know
if that sufficiently answers your question.
Yes. That's helpful. Thank you.
Yeah. Yeah.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Simon Rowe from Junus Henderson. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Oh, hi. Good morning. I just wonder whether you could update us on how well that the logistics side of the of the Turkish operation works at the moment. I mean, because I know that there's a dynamic between the ferry and the overland routes and, and, you know, even whether the borders between Italy and other countries are open. I mean, how are you affected by these factors at the moment?
A good question. We Turkey to Italy has been a struggle to keep operations going, especially in the beginning of the outbreak. Italy, obviously, half hit. We have this special system that we fly drivers from Turkey to Italy and to France. And then they have then they can stay doing capitalist driving for some time, and then they have to come back and get exchanged.
And we've not been able to continue the flights. The flights from Turkey to Italy have been stopped by Turkish Airlines and other operators. On the other hand, some of the visa regulations that forced the drivers to come back have been suspended by the country so that they have been allowed to continue working. So there has been a lot of effort put into this. We've looked at alternative ports in Croatia and other places to have us back up if something were to break down.
We've been able to keep our people safe in the ports, which was our big worry, of course, that if you have a significant outbreak there or in one of our other main ports that, that could impact a lot of freight services. But we've been able to with a lot of contacts with authorities in the relevant countries to keep everything floating. Overland has been also having some challenges with closed borders and queuing. So it's probably been equally challenging also for oil and transportation. When we look at market shares, it looks like we have definitely been able to maintain our market share versus Overland.
Some of the operational issues that we had due to congestion in 2019 have been at least temporarily solved. So we provide a good service, we believe, to our customers. We've had so big frequencies between Istanbul and Italy that even with the reductions we put in, there's still a very, very attractive service for our customers. So if anything, we have a small hope that Turkey could come out stronger from this crisis as some customers who haven't used Ferri before have come to us and have had to use us, Boss Siemens, for example. So that's the status in Turkey, Simon.
Okay. And one other question. Going back to the passenger business, and you were talking about the assumption that essentially some cross channel passenger business comes back in the summer. Does that assume that the French border opens? Because I'm not very clear at the moment whether it's actually possible to go to France in a car from The UK.
You are that's a good question. Right now, we cannot I don't think you should try unless you can come up with a really good excuse for going there. So this is assuming that the border closings are discontinued and the quarantine ideas of getting fourteen days quarantine will be dropped. So when we say a gradual revert assumption of passenger services on the channel in July, it does imply that you can now travel between those two countries as without having an essential need.
Have you had any special information on that topic?
No. We, of course, keep close contact with the authorities and you get different signals. But we have nothing to substantiate that other than we can see that there is a big drive among both governments and politicians and industries across Europe to try to open the borders. We saw Germany there. They are now opening from Denmark the May 15, which will, of course, put pressure on Denmark to do something similar, although that may come a little bit later.
And so we think something will start happening over the summer on border openings.
And lastly, can you say something about how much extra you're going to have to pay for this financial headroom?
In absolute numbers, I don't think we have that. We, of course, pay some commitment fees for extra liquidity that we have secured. We have an interest grid that also impacts our existing facilities, but it's nothing serious. The new there's no new grids or anything like that introduced. It's based on all is based on the existing agreement.
Okay. Thank you very much indeed.
You're welcome.
Thank you. And as there appear to be no further audio questions, I return the conference to you.
Thank you very much. We although, DFCS and the whole world have been hard hit by an unprecedented pandemic, we are adopting to the new situation. We remain confident that we, as things normalize, will be strongly positioned to deliver on our pre COVID-nineteen strategic priorities and pre COVID-nineteen financial ambitions. We thank you for listening in and look forward to the next update probably in August. Have a good day.