My name is Anneli Simm, and I am the Investor Relations Manager at Tallink. Joining me today are Peep Jalakas, Chairman of the Management Board, and Harri Hanschmidt, Member of the Management Board. Peep will begin with an overview of the quarter and the key insights to the quarter, after which Harri will take you through the financial results in more detail. Following the presentation, we will open the floor for questions. We have received few questions in advance, but please feel free to submit additional questions using the Q&A function of the webinar. It would be also helpful if you could include your name when submitting the questions. With that, I will now hand over to Peep.
Thank you, Anneli, and good afternoon also from my behalf, and welcome to Tallink Grupp Q2 2026 results webinar. As Anneli said, I am Peep Jalakas and in the role of Chairman of the Management Board. If to give one sentence for Q2, I would say that Tallink delivered stable financial results in unstable world. The three key highlights that I would bring out, First of all, demand environment remained challenging, but we delivered the same top line as last year. Second, I would point out that cost base increased due to Middle East crisis and put additional pressure on fuel cost. Costs were also impacted by full implementation of ETS emission system. All in all, that impacted profitability. The EBITDA was down 8%. At the same time, we delivered net profit at the same level as last year.
Thirdly, Tallink continued to have a strong balance sheet, decreasing leverage and ample liquidity position. Tallink Grupp remains the leading European provider of leisure and business travel, and sea transportation services in Baltic Sea region. We have strong brands, Tallink and Silja Line, plus a growing Club One loyalty program membership. At the end of Q2, we had 11 vessels in total, five regular Baltic Sea routes, three vessels operating in charter, one vessel being in layup, four hotels. Express Hotel was under renovation, also partly in Q2, where we renovated hotel rooms and public spaces. We also operate 20 Burger King restaurants. In total, we currently have 3.6 million Club One members. Q2, when we are already in high season, the employee amount has increased up to 5,000 employees.
Our diversified business model, combining passenger transport, cargo, hospitality, retail, and charter operations remains a key strength. If we look at the fleet composition and the deployment, our fleet consists high-speed shuttle vessels, cruise ferries, and the Ro-Pax ferry. The Estonia-Finland shuttle route continues to be operated by Megastar and MyStar, and also supported by Victoria cruise vessel. Cruise operations continued in Helsinki-Stockholm, Turku-Stockholm, and Tallinn-Stockholm routes. Two vessels, Silja Europa and Galaxy remain in charter, generating stable income and optimizing fleet utilization. Romantika returned from charter early March and was in layup during Q2. Since early July until mid-August, Romantika operates on the Tallink-Stockholm route as a second vessel in addition to Baltic Queen. The vessel also makes two special cruises on the Bay of Tallinn.
For the Paldiski-Kapellskär route, the last day of operations for Superfast IX before she headed out to the charter was April 30. The vessel is now called St Patrick and is on a three-year charter and operating between Ireland and France. Fleet optimization and discipline continue to be important topic also during 2026. Now I will give over the word to management board member, Harri Hanschmidt, who will give more detailed overview of Q2 financial results.
Thank you, Peep. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today My name is Harri Hanschmidt. I'm a board member for Tallink Grupp, and we'll continue with the presentation, after which questions will be answered by our chairman of the management board, Peep Jalakas. We first take a look at the second quarter highlights. Unfortunately, second quarter globally was characterized by negative news as we saw increase in fuel prices because of the Middle East crisis that is still continuing. Despite this, we managed to more or less match the last year results. In the second quarter, we transported over 1.4 million passengers. It was a slight drop by 2.2%, but we had more cargo units on board of our vessels. Altogether, 69,000 and almost a 3% raise. The passenger car levels saw a slight decline by 6.5%.
Revenue stayed exactly on the same level as in the same period the year before. Although we had one less route as the Baltic Sea route is currently suspended. There were also maybe smaller factors. For example, there were very many concerts with world-famous bands performing in 2025. This year in Tallink, there were less of those events, and we could also see this somewhat on the passenger level. EBITDA reached EUR 34.3 million. That's EUR 3 million less than last year same period. If we think that the fuel prices were considerably higher, here we can see that through effective operations and also by introduction of fuel surcharge, we were able to offset this effect by somewhat. Net loss was the same as EUR 2.5 million as last year same time. CapEx was EUR 7.3 million.
This mainly covered the maintenance works of St Patrick, formerly Superfast IX, and the full renovation of the Tallink Express Hotel that is now already again operational. Interest-bearing debt remained on the same level of EUR 449 million, net debt decreased by EUR 28.1 million to a total of EUR 409.6 million. Total repayment of loans and related interest expenses was EUR 16.3 million in the second quarter. We also had altogether EUR 27.3 million overdraft. Overdraft sometimes is necessary coming out from the low season. As we have steady dividend payments, we generate more cash in the third quarter. First and second quarter, we have used some overdraft. Our liquidity remains at a very sufficient level of EUR 112 million. Lower depreciation expense following the revised useful life estimates also positively impacted the bottom line results in the second quarter.
In the same period last year, we had two vessels idle, the Sailor and Regal Star. This year we had one vessel idle, Romantika, and in the events after the balance sheet, you can see that Romantika went for the high season to operations between Tallinn and Stockholm supplying additional capacity for high season on site of Baltic Queen. The difference is Romantika does not make a stop in Åland Islands in Mariehamn. If you look at the sales and results on the geographical level, we can see we maintain a strong market position, 48% market share in Estonia-Finland passenger traffic, 37% in Finland-Sweden, and we are the only operator between Estonia and Sweden. The second quarter performance was affected by the suspension of our Helsinki route and also savings from the idle vessel disposals on a year.
We also saw stable passenger demand in the core routes, as is expected in the second quarter, and higher fuel cost impacting especially the longer routes. We can see the Finland-Sweden route segment result is quite strongly affected by this. Cargo sales improved If you look at the revenue by operational segments in Q2, we see quite a familiar picture. 49% of the sales came from restaurant and shop sales, 29% from ticket sales, 11% from cargo sales, 6% from charter, 2% from accommodation. As the revenue was quite flat, here we can also see that most of the segments are quite flat, but we see added revenue from cargo transportation.
If you look at the dynamics of the seasonality, we are also pretty much in the same spot as last year, with 2.5 million passengers transported, cargo units slightly higher, revenue EUR 356 million, and EBITDA EUR 36 million in the first six months. The quarterly results always have a clear pattern. The first quarter is the low season. This we also use to repairs, upgrades, stockings for the vessels. Second quarter, we see a pickup in passenger numbers and passenger cars. The third quarter, the next quarter, will be the high season. Here we can see that if you look at the six months of this financial year, we are about EUR 10 million ahead of the last year's result on the bottom line. If you look at the income statement, the sales were on the last year's level.
There was lower depreciation, stable revenue, and controlled operating expenses, and operational efficiency remains a priority. Although the second quarter was maybe slightly weaker compared to the same period last year, almost on every line, we see improvement on the six-month result. If we look at the cash flow position, operating cash flow was positive, CapEx EUR 7.3 million, free cash flow EUR 42.9 million, and the debt financing net effect EUR 10.2 million, with interest EUR 4.9 million and change in cash positive EUR 27.9 million. Interest was lower because we have paid back debt and last year sold the vessel Star, there is a positive development on that. If you look at the financial position, the net debt decreased to EUR 409.6 million, we continue the deleveraging track.
Net debt to EBITDA improved to 3.1 x. We can say that this is a comfortable level, but we do keep deleveraging while at the same time having a steady dividend policy and making the necessary CapEx for the vessels and the IT systems and so forth. Equity ratio was affected by the dividend payout and is 50.4%. In a comfortable position, if you look at loan portfolio, the long-term bank loans amounted to EUR 349 million with maturities between three and nine years. We have both fixed and floating interest structure. About half of our loans are with fixed interest rate. Debt reduction remains a strategic focus. We do keep deleveraging, as mentioned before. Annual general meeting decided to pay out EUR 0.06 of dividend. This payment is done in two parts.
With ex-dividend dates, first one was 17th of June. The next one is 12th of November. Anybody who has Tallink shares on those dates will receive dividends from both of the dividend payout. This is all from me. Thank you very much. I will now give word to Peep Jalakas, who will start answering questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Harri. Before Peep will respond the questions, I will just give you an insight how we do it. As usual, I will read out the questions we have received. Peep will answer them. If we have received similar questions, I will combine them. I will start with those which have been sent by mail earlier today. The first one is about the loan principal repayments for 2026 and 2027. What will be the loan principal repayments?
Yes. When it comes to the loan agreements, we haven't made any major changes there. The repayment profile continues to be as it has been. The principal payment is around EUR 55 million-EUR 60 million per annum.
Thank you. A few questions about investments, again, combined. What are the approximate annual maintenance investments given the recent years' inflation and ship divestments?
Yes. Thank you. Internally, we agree on the investment program as part of the annual budgeting process. This is currently in process when it comes to 2027. I can't give much guidance there. When it comes to 2026, first half total investments amounted to EUR 21.5 million, which is largely in line with 2025 first half investments. For Tallink, due to our seasonality, the majority of our maintenance investments are done first half of the year. Second half is less active when it comes to CapEx.
Could Tallink consider launching a share buyback program? This would be more tax efficient than paying dividends.
When it comes to the buyback program, we continue to follow the dividend policy that has been approved and been in place since 2018. In current stage, we don't consider to make any changes there, including introducing the share buyback program. That's not in the pipeline as of now.
Thank you. Is it possible to say how many days fuel inventory do you keep during the high season, or if it is bought at spot price daily?
Yes, there is a small inventory on board of the ships, but it is less than one week consumption. That is more or less the guidance. When it comes to the price arrangements, then maritime diesel or MDO is bought with the spot price, and LNG price is one month ahead price that we use.
Thank you. We will continue now with the questions from the Q&A section of the webinar. Are you planning to reopen any routes?
Not immediately. Of course, we are analyzing different options and as we already pointed out, for a bit more than a month, we didn't open a new route, but we brought a new vessel to the Baltic Sea operations, Romantika. At today's overall demand, no immediate plans to open new routes.
This is followed by another one. What is the future plan for Romantika?
As of now, Romantika will operate until 8th of August on current Tallinn-Stockholm route. After that, we are looking for the work outside of Baltic Sea. The plan is to charter that vessel out. There are negotiations ongoing, nothing has been agreed fully yet.
Which ship would be suitable for a reopened route from Riga?
That is a good speculation question. When it comes to the Riga route, this is something that we are also looking into and analyzing. There are different obstacles why this is not, in a short run, a viable option. When it comes to the vessels, I think we have several vessels currently in our fleet, which could theoretically operate in Riga-Stockholm route.
Thank you. Would the two chartered ships currently in Netherlands be economically effective enough to return to the Baltic Sea for regular traffic?
We look at the current cash flow that these ships are generating, this is the most efficient usage of these vessels. Again, theoretically, these vessels could replace some other vessels that we currently operate in Baltic Sea. Theoretically, this is possible, but at the moment, we believe that these vessels are utilized in the best possible way
What is your general opinion regarding Åland Islands and future traffic?
General opinion is that we should continue the routes as we have operated them till now. Åland Islands gives benefits, when it comes to the operations between Finland-Sweden and Estonia-Sweden, it makes sense to have a stop there.
Will Långnäs or Mariehamn be your future main port for the Turku traffic on Åland?
No. In last 12 months, we have used both ports. Both can be an option. At the moment, we operate in Mariehamn. If there will be any plans to change, we will inform our clients well in advance.
Thank you. The last question on Q&A section. Despite higher surcharges, average ticket price increased by just EUR 0.87 per passenger year-over-year. Were summertime ticket discounts deeper or longer this year compared to last year? Why were ticket prices more or less unchanged despite higher surcharges?
Yes, a good question. I think the most simple answer is that the composition of tickets and how much is sold with regular price and with campaign price has slightly changed in favor of campaign priced tickets. That is actually impacting the average price per ticket. All in all, I would say that the ticket prices have stayed rather stable and on top of it, there is the surcharge both for CO2 emission and the fuel.
This was the last question. On behalf of Tallink, we thank you for joining us today and for your questions. We appreciate your continued interest and support, and we wish you a pleasant rest of the summer. We're looking forward to speaking to you again in October when we will publish our third quarter results. Thank you and goodbye