Luka Koper published their FY 2019 results last week, showing an 1% YoY increase in sales, while EBITDA fell 26% YoY. Net profit was also down, amounting to EUR 40.4m (-32% YoY).
Luka Koper published their FY 2019 results las week, showing an 1% YoY increase in sales which amounted to EUR 228.7m. Higher revenue from the market activity were achieved from the warehousing, due to a slower goods shipment, stuffing and unstuffing of containers and rentals. In comparison with 2018, the revenue from the maritime throughput were lower due to achieved lower maritime throughput.
Maritime throughput was below the level registered in 2018 (-5% YoY) and 7.6% below the plan, totaling 22.79m tons. The decrease could primarily attributed to the lower throughput of dry bulk cargoes, which recorded a 17.17% decrease of 1.37 tons. It is worth noting that lower throughput was recorded in most commodity groups, with the exception of liquid cargo (+11.73% YoY), where we managed to achieve a historical record in throughput of 4.3m tons. Such performance of liquid cargoes came on the back of favorable trends in fuel transport and the capacity of liquid cargo terminals.
| wdt_ID | Cargo throughput (tons) | 2019 | 2018 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liquid cargoes | 4.307.388,00 | 3.855.247,00 | 11,73 |
| 2 | Containers | 9.475.016,00 | 9.520.007,00 | -0,47 |
| 3 | Cars | 1.111.433,00 | 1.156.265,00 | -3,88 |
| 4 | General cargo | 1.280.194,00 | 1.526.026,00 | -16,11 |
| 5 | Dry bulk cargoes | 6.618.616,00 | 7.991.074,00 | -17,17 |
| 6 | TOTAL | 22.792.646,00 | 24.048.618,00 | -5,22 |
Certain terminals, mainly Container Terminal, General Cargo (metal products segment) Terminal, Car Terminal and Iron Ore and Coal Terminal which are indirectly involved in the supply chain of these industries, have been most affected by the decline in production. Over the last quarter, the Car Terminal has seen an increase in throughput, which is mainly due to the tendency of manufacturers to place cars on the market before the end of the year.
EBITDA fell 26% YoY to EUR 73.1m. Note that the reason for such a strong decrease in operating performance was partly due to a one-off gain recorded in 2018 when the Group received a compensation in the amount of EUR 9.3m for the crane which was damaged after a ship toppled it during a storm. However, even if one would to exclude the mentioned one-off, the main reason for last year’s decrease in EBITDA lies in higher labour costs. To refresh your memory, in 2019 Luka Koper took on more than 400 new employees which were previously outsourced and provided labour services through various employment agencies. As a result, labour costs went up by EUR 15.1m.
Finally, the bottom line was positively influenced by lower tax expenses as Luka Koper benefited from higher tax reliefs from investments in 2019. As a result, net profit in 2019 amounted to EUR 40.4m, representing a 32% YoY decrease.
On the balance sheet, the company continues to operate virtual without any debt as the net debt/EBITDA ratio amounted to 0.3x.
Luka Koper Key Financials (EUR 000)
