Earnings of integrated marine logistics company Marco Polo Marine (MPM) came in at $5.95 million in 1HFY2021 ended March, reversing from the losses of $708,000 registered in the year before.
On a fully diluted basis, this translates to earnings per share of 0.17 cents in 1HFY2021 versus losses per share of 0.02 cents in 1HFY2020.
This follows a 13.8% increase in the revenue for 1HFY2021 to $21.1 million, from $18.6 million.
A key contributor to this was a 34.5% jump in revenue from its ship building & repair operations to $11.7 million that follows an increase in ship repair jobs as well as the commencement of the construction of two smart fish farms.
This helped mitigate the 5.1% decline in its income from ship chartering operations which came in at $9.4 million. MPM attributes this to lower charter rates for its fleet of tugboats and barges.
The average utilisation rates for both its fleet of tugboats, barges and OSVs have remained comparable to that of 1HFY2020, the group adds.
Overall, the company’s gross profit was up by 47% to $5.0 million in 1HFY2021, due to the absence of one-off reactivation costs incurred for its fleet of offshore vessels.
Its other operating income for the period had edged up to $7.3 million, from $2.4 million in 1HFY2020, thanks to a $6.2 million gain from the acquisition of debt in October 2020.
Excluding foreign exchange losses and this one-off gain from the acquisition, the group’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased to $3.9 million in 1HFY2021, from $1.1 million in the year before.
In this time, the share of losses from its jointly controlled companies decreased to around $20,0000 from $1.0 million in 1HFY2020. The group attributes this to a lower utilisation of the vessel held by Pelayaran Era.
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Aside from this, it reports that it has ceased to recognise the share of results in 1HFY2021 from PT Pelayaran Nasional Bina Buan Raya Tbk – its joint venture – since the losses to be recognised have exceeded MPM’s cost of investment.
The group acknowledges that its ship chartering and shipyard operations have seen a slowdown, as the pandemic continues to crimp oil demand and oil and gas activities.
Says MPM CEO Sean Lee, “despite the industry’s challenging backdrop, we were able to register a creditable performance for 1HFY2021, returning to profit excluding unrealised forex, from a net loss in the previous period”.
However, he points out positive signs indicating that sector downturn may be bottoming-out gradually.
Going forward, the group will continue to step up its marketing efforts to improve its performance and will explore additional revenue sources by venturing beyond Asean. Back home, it is expecting the utilisation of its fleet of tugboats and barges to improve as construction activities resume progressively.
It is also set to foray into a new segment: offshore windfarm renewable energy.
“Our efforts to diversify into the renewables sector has started to bear fruit, and the Group will continue to focus on transitioning into green energy,” mulls Lee.
Meanwhile MPM’s shipyard division will continue to focus on securing ship repair and maintenance orders from regional ship owners.
As at 9.16am, shares in Marco Polo Marine were up 0.1 cents or 5.26% to 2.0 cents.
