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Chelsea Logistics’ net loss widened 18% in 2021 due to non-recurring items that include sale of assets below book value
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Declines in the group’s passenger, tanker and tugboat businesses shrank consolidated revenue by 4%
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Freight and logistics segments posted 30% and 41% higher revenues in 2021
Chelsea Logistics and Infrastructure Holdings Corp. (CLC) reported a net loss of P3.905 billion in 2021, larger by 18% year-on-year than the P3.3 billion in 2020 due to non-recurring items that included sale of assets below their book value.
Excluding these one-time items, CLC’s net loss would have actually narrowed by 18% year-on-year from P5.157 billion in 2020 to P4.253 billion in 2021, CLC said in a statement.
Consolidated revenue decreased 4% to P4.469 billion on the back of declines in the group’s passenger, tanker and tugboat businesses. These setbacks were mitigated by strong growth in the freight and logistics segments.
The freight business continued to recover with a 30% y-o-y increase in revenue to P2.727 billion, already surpassing the P2.688 billion revenue in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic and the first lockdown in March 2020.
Freight accounted for 61% of CLC’s consolidated revenue, up from 45% in the previous year.
Revenues from the logistics business advanced 41% to P519 million. Logistics’ share in the total revenue grew to 12% in 2021 from 8% in 2020.
Travel restrictions implemented not only by the national government but also by local government units in areas where CLC’s shipping subsidiaries make port calls continued to challenge the passenger business.
Restrictions in movement of petroleum products as well as lower demand from customers also hampered recovery of the tankering business.
CLC, however, noted signs of recovery, especially for passage, whose year-on-year revenue decline slowed down from 65% in 2020 to 42% in 2021, at P293 million.
For 2021, CLC was able to cut its operating losses by 17% to P2.001 billion.
“We remain very encouraged in seeing pockets of recovery in the industry. This is despite outside factors like the peaks in the number of active COVID-19 cases last year and the Omicron variant surge at the beginning of this year,” said CLC president and chief executive officer Chryss Alfonsus Damuy.
“We are hopeful of a further recovery this year while we need to be careful of prices as they will certainly have a negative impact on our margins.”
CLC subsidiaries include Chelsea Shipping Corp.; Trans-Asia Shipping Lines Inc.; Udenna Investments B. V.; Starlite Ferries Inc.; Worklink Services Inc.;TASLI Services Inc., and The Supercat Fast Ferry Corp.
