Good afternoon, all of those who have joined us today. Welcome to Tallink Grupp Investor Webinar, introducing the financial results for the third quarter of 2024 . My name is Anneli Simm , and I'm the Investor Relations Manager at Tallink, and I'm moderating today's webinar. Today we have Margus Schults, the member of the Management Board of Tallink Grupp, who will walk you through the third quarter results and key takeaways. And the presentation will be followed by, after the presentation, sorry, Mr. Paavo Nõgene, the CEO of Tallink Grupp, will take your questions. We have already received a few questions, but encourage you to ask your questions through the Q&A function. It would be nice, although, that if you would also identify yourself when asking the question.
I will now hand it over to Mr. Margus Schults, who will start with the presentation.
Yes, good afternoon from my side. My name is Margus Schults, and I'm Grupp CFO. The key facts about Tallink Grupp have not been changed so much. We have still 14 vessels, out of which 12 are passenger vessels, and two are cargo vessels. And out of those 12 passenger vessels, three are chartered, some of them short-term and one long-term. And then out of the 12, two vessels are currently in lay-up situation. What is positive, we have via our loyalty program, Club One, and we see constant growth of the loyal customer members. So last time we spoke, it was 3.2 million. Now, it's already achieving 3.3 million Club One members. But the remaining facts, our hotels, restaurants, and number of staff is rather stable.
When you compare our results volume-wise or result-wise, it's good to remember always where our fleet is operating, because we have had changes, and changes affect the comparison to last year, but also, fleet changes are affecting the results within Q3 2024. So very briefly, Tallinn- Helsinki, we have two shuttle vessels, Megastar and MyStar, and these have been operating the whole year on the same route. But then we have a Victoria, which is operating also on Tallinn- Helsinki. And this vessel was rerouted for summer, for June, July, August, to be the second vessel in Tallinn-S tockholm line. So, the Tallinn- Helsinki line numbers were a little bit declining, and then Tallinn- Stockholm numbers heavily increasing.
Then by end of Q3, we have again only one vessel on Tallinn- Stockholm, Baltic Queen. As said, during summer, there was two vessels. In Turku, Stockholm, we have not had big changes, but since September this year, we have started a Day in Stockholm concept on that route, and it means that from mid-September, there are somewhat less departures than a year ago. Helsinki- Stockholm is stable, two vessels operating daily on that route, and the same by this couple share, no changes if we compare, for instance, last year figures. And then we have one long-term charter, Star, or current name, James Joyce, in Ireland, and then two short-term charters, Galaxy and Silja Europa, which are chartered to Holland.
We have recently prolonged the charter of Galaxy for next twelve months, so with option to prolong it even further. The Galaxy will stay in Holland until October 2026 , until 2025 . Then we have, unfortunately, two vessels which are in lay-up situation, Romantika and Superfast IX . If we go to numbers, overall, as everybody knows, economic situation is not too favorable. Estonian economy, for instance, have declined already nine or ten quarters in a row, and also Finnish economy have not been picking up too heavily yet. We see first positive signs in there, but Q3 results are definitely, especially cargo results, are definitely affected by low and very tight economic situation.
In Q3, we transported totally a little more than 1.7 million passengers, which is about 3% less than a year ago. The cargo units were about 67,000 , which is about 12% less than last year. But what is very positive is that cargo revenue is increasing, so the cargo revenue was about 1% higher than the Q3 2023. Even the volumes have dropped. Our total revenue was EUR 232 million in Q3, which is basically 4% less than in Q3 2023, reflecting the decline in the volumes.
Our EBITDA for Q3 was EUR 68 million versus EUR 82 million a year ago, and this is basically reflecting the fact that we have two vessels in lay-up situation, and these two vessels were in a charter agreement, under charter agreement a year ago. The net profit last quarter was EUR 37 million versus EUR 49 million for a year ago. Capital expenditures is under control, so EUR 6 million during Q3, mostly related to the maintenance repair to vessels. In our balance sheet, no major changes. In assets, we have still our vessels, EUR 1.5 billion, and total equity is EUR 787 million.
If you look to segments, in terms of sales and result, then, like I mentioned, Estonia -Sweden segment increased because we have two vessels in these operations and had a positive impact. But you can see that this almost EUR 9 million increase in the sales did not bring anything to the bottom line, which basically tells that economic situation is still weak, and even with increased revenues, the costs are also increasing and the bottom line was stable. Finland- Sweden, both sales wise and result wise, were slightly decreasing due to the less passengers and less cargo volumes.
Also in Finland- Sweden, competition have increased because Finnlines have brought two new vessels to Naantali–Kapellskär route, and these new vessels have much more capacity for passengers as well as cargo, so affecting the total situation when the market itself is weak. And then the segment other, which is basically our charter vessels, declined due to the two agreements which ended during the period. If you look at the operational segments, then we can see that the restaurant and bar shops decreased about EUR 5.5 million, and at the same time, ticket revenue increased EUR 2.6 million. And this basically reflects this decrease in the restaurant and shops, also the weak consumer confidence.
It is affecting maybe the willingness to travel or frequency of travel for passengers. As I mentioned already, the number of passengers was down by 3% comparing Q3 2023. But also, I would say that the people are more careful when they make onboard shopping. So somewhat, the onboard sales was decreasing a little bit more than the volumes. Volumes decreased 3.4%, and then onboard sales, 4.9%. But nothing dramatic, but we hope that on the other side of the coin is of course, that once we hope that the first signs of economic recovery become more strong, more stronger, then we also see the improvement of both in terms of volumes as well as spent on board.
So this is our dynamics in seasonality. As in now during first nine months, we have transported 4.3 million people and cargo units are almost 240,000. As you can see, that now the seasonality is less obvious than in 2019, pre-COVID times, because we have less cruise vessels in operations, and the shuttles operation are more stable throughout the year. Therefore, Q2 and Q3 numbers are quite equal, while in 2019 these were in summer, obviously much higher. And the revenue totally is now slightly over EUR 600 million and EBITDA EUR 149 million. And net profit, like we already mentioned, EUR 36 million.
So we are happy that already six quarters in a row we have been producing positive quarterly net profit result. And as you can see, of course, that this has been not the case during COVID times, but also in normal operations the seasonality was much higher. And we need to also remember that we paid dividends in Q3, EUR 0.06 per share, which affected and of course from dividends we paid also income tax. So this affected our results in 2024 Q3 net profit came in in 2023 and during COVID years dividends were not paid.
In the consolidated income statement, like already mentioned, sales slightly down, couple of percentage down, EUR 232 million, and the costs have been under control, kept under control, so the costs are still very stable. Due to lower sales, the operating result is less 44 million euros. And also it affects that we have EBITDA EUR 68 million, which makes EBITDA margin basically 30%, slightly lower than in 2023 Q3, but still on very healthy level, 30% EBITDA margin. On cash flow, it is quite stable. Less volume means also a little bit less operating cash flow by EUR 5 million. So EUR 55 million is our operating cash flow.
Capital expenditures already mentioned, the fixes and repair of our vessels, EUR 6 million, like it was also a year ago. Then we, our debt financing is a little bit eased after refinancing of the debt in December last year. We have now put more focus that our payments in Q3 and Q4 are a little bit higher than Q1, Q2, which help us to stabilize the cash flow and reflects our seasonality. As mentioned already, then dividends and income tax are paid, were paid on third of July this year, and it affected our cash flow by EUR 49 million. And in comparative periods, this number was zero. In our balance sheet, no major changes. We have our vessels as assets, and about EUR 1.4 billion.
And on the liability side, also, the interest-bearing liabilities have decreased during the Q3 by EUR 32 million. And debt EBITDA is still on healthy level, below 3, 2.98. So, and equity ratio has increased because of the lower debt, so it's now reached already 53%. And, once more, maybe the long-term picture about our loans portfolio structure, it has not changed since we made the last refinancing in December 2023. We have three loan agreements, and the remaining maturity of those is now 4.5 years-10 years. Some of those are fixed, and some of those are euro floating rate loans, all euro-denominated. And on top of that, we have also overdraft agreements in the total amount of EUR 75 million , and these were not used as of the end of Q3.
Thank you, Margus.
Thank you.
Thank you, Margus. So before we start with the Q&A session, I will give the word to Mr. Paavo Nõgene.
Yes, good afternoon also from my side. We had relatively strong quarter three, if you take into account that, as Margus already told, two vessels lay up. What this means, actually, that vessel, which is laid up, generates around EUR 1 million loss monthly. Two vessels, three months, this actually, this we actually miss comparing from the last year results. Market for the charter agreements has not been changed. It's relatively good, as we just two days ago announced that we were able to extend the Galaxy contract. Galaxy will stay in Holland, and we're working to find good work for Romantika and Superfast IX as well. So but, but all the years, we can't make the new records.
We need to have some luck as well. All components must come together, and if we can find shore for the two vessels, then we are back in the track to start to make also the new records. But all in all, we are in the safe side with a nine-month result close to EUR 45 million is the clear sign that Tallink is able to pay the dividends also next year. Of course, fourth quarter is ongoing, and let's hope that something very very big is not changing, so we can keep our promise and start to pay out the dividends again on a regular basis, as we did this year. Our aim is definitely to do it also next year.
But, Anneli will read the questions, and I'm answering as much as we can answer.
Thank you, Paavo. I think some of the questions you already addressed . And I will not read those out loud again. But anyhow, I'll start with the first one. We have received also a few on the live Q&A section of the webinar. So please, if you have more questions, just write them down there. But the first question is: Will there be a cruise vessel operating the Helsinki-Tallinn route in summer 2025 ?
Yes, we currently have planned that Victoria, which is operating Tallinn-Helsinki route, will stay during the summer period, also Tallinn-Helsinki route, and making some extra cruises to Visby, as did also this year. So we are not planning to move Victoria back to the Stockholm route for the second vessel for the summer.
Thank you. What are the plans to solve the problem with the decrease in passenger flow?
As said, already Margus Schults mentioned that economic situation in all our home markets are kind of fragile. If this will change, we definitely will see more demand and actually we are kind of happy already with some passenger segments which are coming back from other continents and actually helping us to cover this decrease, which may be coming from the home markets, but it's daily basis work, and our teams are working hard to have more passengers on board.
Thank you. What is the outlook for the current quarter and upcoming winter? What are the main opportunities, risks, bottlenecks?
As you all know, we are not giving out any outlook about the current quarter. What we can say is that October, as always, having the school holiday periods, so currently in Estonia, last week it was in Finland, last week was very strong. So if there are holiday season, then definitely the vessels are always full. But we need to work with all the bottlenecks and the risks which is coming from the economy or which coming from other countries. Export markets are still relatively low, which means that there are less goods to transport, which means that competition in the cargo side is very high.
But as Margus Schults already mentioned it, and we have been able to reach the same cargo revenue level with carrying less cargo, which means that our cost base is also lower. So we have worked hard to make this change, and happy to say that it has been successful, at least until now. So if we also maybe coming months announce that we had less cargo than it was last year, then the other side of the coin is that we earn more from lane meter compared to last year.
Thank you. How is consumer sentiment in Finland?
It's in all countries, quite low. As Margus also said, people maybe are more careful when they going to shop. And of course, now there are good signs that everybody's lowering and customers having more free money. But definitely, everybody are more careful making any costs. And this is natural, so we need to live with this.
Thank you. Has the pressure on wages subsided?
We have union agreements, and they are long-term agreements. So we follow the union agreements in all our countries, and therefore, we can't say that there has been any big dramatic increases in last years. We know what we have agreed, and we know how to plan it. So we don't see so many surprises in the wages.
Thank you. What will be the main parameters you look at when deciding if it's appropriate to pay out dividend according to dividend policy?
First of all, we need to know what is our plan for next three to five years. Are we going to plan some new investments? Currently, we don't, because one very big reason is that the technology is not yet there to give us clear answer. If you're going to build some new vessel, which engines, which fuel, what are the upcoming European Union or IMO new regulations, or new taxes, there are so many uncertain things currently that we have decided that we take it calm. We really want to pay dividends next years to our shareholders.
And when we really see that there are clear understanding, what kind vessel, what kind, engine and fuel, is there for making the decision to build a new vessel for next 40 years-50 years, then we are ready to do it. But until then, I think that, the question is more asked because to understand that, how big is the possibility that Tallink is going to pay the regular dividends, this is very high. So the possibility, because, what I just explained, we don't have in coming years, very big investment plans due to the different reasons I just explained.
Thank you. With regards to restaurants and shop sales, is it possible to rank the most important core markets, or are they all of the same importance?
Of course, the Finnish market is our main market and most important market in the context of the number of passengers and also spending on board.
What was behind the increase in employees at the end of Q3 compared to last year Q3?
It should be Victoria, which started operations last year in quarter four, beginning of October. So in end of Q3, Victoria was lay-up in Tallinn.
Is it possible to get some word on the fuel price effect in Q3 2024?
The fuel price is issue. It's still 60% higher compared to 2019 we had. So this is the problem, and we definitely forward this price to customers. It's coming from the fact that the fuel is not coming anymore from around the corner. It's coming from more far places, and transport the fuel to the vessels, the price has been changed, and therefore yes, if we haven't hedged any fuel prices, we don't have any take or pay agreements. So we follow the market price plus then premiums to transport the fuel to the vessels.
Thank you. How are market conditions in the charter market, especially considering Romantika has been idle for almost twelve months?
Yes, Romantika has been idle almost ten months, and the background is that we wasn't ready that she's coming back because that was accident that the company chartered Romantika went bankruptcy. So that was a very quick decision to bring the vessel home. Yes, we have been struggling to find a good work to her. We have had plenty of offers for summer season, example with price levels which don't make us happy.
We also need to consider that if you're going to operate three or four months, example, somewhere in Mediterranean with low charter rate, then in which condition then the vessel coming back, and how much we need to invest after that three or four months low charter price, charter, to restore Romantika back to the quality level we would like to have her. So it's always, we always need to consider different aspects, but also today there are visitors on board of Romantika. So we are negotiating all the time potential work to her.
Thank you. Silja Symphony and Silja Serenade are now both over 30 years old. How much longer can these ferries keep operating before you need to order new ones?
Yes, vessels are built for fifty years. Of course, vessels are different. We have been internally discussing that Symphony and Serenade can operate in our operations until they are somewhere close to forty-five years old. So we have time, and that's why I also explained a bit earlier that we need this time, because if you're going to make now some investment decision for a big cruise vessel, which most probably will cost around EUR 500 million and we don't know actually with which fuel we should build it, then it's very difficult, and very high risk to make the wrong decision.
So we are happy that our fleet is relatively young, and we have time to wait with these big and expensive investment decisions.
Thank you. Is Galaxy charter extension done at similar monetary terms as the original contract?
I think the word similar is very good word here. Let's say it's similar.
Thank you. Seems like some questions have been already answered here. Is the CO2 cost pass-through situation the same as in Q2, or have you had to cover some of it yourself in Q3?
We forward governmental taxes to the customers. Nothing to do. CO2 quota is governmental tax, and yeah, we forward it fully to the customers.
Thank you. Since the onboard sales are decreasing, are you considering any changes in your price strategy?
I think we have been only one who have kept prices in our region, and this is our strategy, and of course, we monitor very, very on a daily basis what our competitors doing and what campaigns they're doing, so on. But currently, yeah, we don't see that we need to do very big changes.
Thank you. Is the ship on Turku to Kapellskär doing a comeback? And if not, why did you choose to go to Stockholm- Turku for the whole year?
It came from the customers that the demand is bigger for Stockholm, and therefore, we decided that maybe there was the novelty effect in the first year, first three or four months, that Kapellskär worked well. But at the moment, the Stockholm works better, and we have also the absolutely new product for that route as well. We have also product today in Stockholm, where vessel will stay in Stockholm. All the customers can keep their belongings on board the vessel, and go out from vessel and come back when they want. So this new product actually has also been quite successful already in the beginning. So yeah, Stockholm is currently, from our point of view, a better destination than Kapellskär.
And the last question, will Silja Europa come back this Christmas or January 2025 ?
Silja Europa is currently chartered out until end of this year. What Silja Europa doing next? About that, we most probably can talk during the next webinar.
Thank you, and as that was the last question, I think we can all thank everybody for attending and for the questions sent. We wish everybody a good rest of the day, and our fourth quarter results will be published in February 2025 , so next year. Thank you.