Blue Water Holding, which comprises the transport group’s total business activities, reported increased turnover and a record profit before tax for 2019.
The company reported a turnover of EUR858 million (US926.9 million) for 2019, a year-on-year increase of EUR112 million (USD121 million). Profit before tax for the year increased by EUR24.4 million (USD26.4 million) to EUR25.7 million (USD27.8 million).
Blue Water Group’s energy and projects division is the main reason for the record result. This division is in the process of executing several major logistics contracts in connection with the extension of the Tengiz oilfield in Kazakhstan. Work on these projects commenced a few years ago and will run until 2021.
Blue Water’s ceo, Søren Nørgaard Thomsen, said: ”We are very satisfied with this record result which shows a significant rise in turnover and bottom line. We are in particular satisfied that we, through dedicated efforts, have managed to improve operations by optimising and enhancing the efficiency of our business parallel with maintaining a high level of quality and customer service.”
Blue Water’s core business activities, such as reefer sea, port services, wind logistics and marine logistics, all made a positive contribution to the business results. The company said that the progress of its general road, sea and air transport units continues through the optimisation and consolidation of the operations.
“Blue Water has a solid core business, and the individual divisions have all developed positively in 2019. This contributes to stressing the fact that our transport and logistics services are in high demand,” added Nørgaard Thomsen.
The company said that it is well prepared for the years ahead, although the Covid-19 pandemic has created uncertainty around this year’s financial results.
“We finished first quarter [2020] with nice figures – ahead of budget and ahead of last year. But during March, the level of activity dropped in some parts of our business, and as we do not know the time horizon for a normalisation of the world, we are more cautious about this year’s result, which in addition to Covid-19 may be negatively affected if the low oil price continues,” said Nørgaard Thomsen. “We are dependent on how fast and to what extent the business community gets back to business. This raises some uncertainty about the year’s result which, however, is expected to be EUR7-18 million (USD7.6-19.5 million),” he added.
Kurt Skov, founder of Blue Water and currently chairman of the board, welcomed the results. “It has always been a pleasure to see how our employees every single day make sure that the customers are being serviced with strong transport solutions. In recent years, we have not fulfilled our expectations for profit, and we can therefore be very proud of this magnificent result which contributes to the continued development of Blue Water,” he said.
