Brittany Ferries 2005 Performance

[Eslier]

Ouest France has, today, published details of Brittany Ferries performance for last year. The article can be read at:

http://www.ouestfrance-bateaux.com/scripts/consult/actu/DetailActu.asp?IdCla=7935&IdArt=290799&IdThe=51

Passenger numbers are up around 10% year on year and around 31% over three years.  Profits were 17,6million Euros, out of a turnover of 365million Euros which is about 5%.

 

[Will]

That's very interesting. That's the opposite to figures published for continental ferry travel in UK. These show a general decline in passenger numbers, though freight seems to be largely holding up, thanks to good performance on the North Sea routes. Passenger numbers from the continent to Britain, as opposed to journeys starting from Britain, have increased though - maybe that is what Ouest France is thinking of? The paper does seem to publish a fair bit of ferry information, but tends to talk up what Brittany Ferries tells it rather than look for the true picture.

Portsmouth's passenger and passenger car figures show a marked decline since 2003, which cannot be entirely accounted for by the loss of the P&O routes to France. http://www.portsmouth-port.co.uk/files/port_stats_2005.pdf

Of course, it may just be that BF has really seen an increase in passenger numbers and profits, contrary to the trend on just about all other services. If so that will be surprising in view of the number of people who have started using alternative carriers.

[Will]

Having done a bit more digging, I find that Britany Ferries will not be publishing its official figures for another three months or so, but has released the following preliminary results for its 2005 financial year:

Turnover : +1%; Passengers : +6.7%; Freight : +10.2%.

[Iceni]

I would be more interested in return on capital having always assumed (but don't know why) that ferrying is a capital intensive business. To most businesses ROCE determines whether/where to invest or divest.

Increase in number of passengers is largely irrelevant, number of cars/bikes/vans is likely to mean more. Freight increase looks good, at the mo lorries can't go by Ryanair, but is this part of a general increase in freight or has BF just got a bigger slice of a same size cake ?

TIA Will, I guess that you will be able to answer the above.

John

not

[Will]

Yes John, ferries are basically capital intensive though many operators get round this by chartering rather than purchasing the ships. In BF's case it was able to take advantage in the past of finance deals arranged by French shipbuilders, though its later vessels have been built in Germany, Holland and Finland. In the case of the Dutch-built Mont St Michel (which, incidentally, virtually bankrupted the builder because it was so late) a very interesting finance deal for the whole ship was put together by the engine supplier, part of the Caterpillar group which, like Daimler-Benz, gets a lot of custom in its other business areas through finance packages.

Most of the income for conventional ferries, as opposed to the smaller high speed ships, is generated by freight, which also has the advantage that it is a regular year-round traffic, unlike passengers. The key to making money out of passenger carrying is to generate on-board income from catering, shops, cabin accommodation etc, something which BF does well, though it is not the money-making operation that it was in the days of duty-free when was used to subsidise fares in order to get people onto the ships and spending money. Arguably special offer fares can do the same to fill the ships at off-peak times, hence the special day trip fares to appeal to booze cruisers.

The biggest cost for ferry operators is manpower. It is a very labour-intensive business, with each ship carrying two or three complete crew complements to provide a round-the-clock service - crew have to be housed, fed etc on board. This is how fast ferries, which operate with far fewer people, often actually work out cheaper for the operators, despite their higher consumption of premium-quality fuel oil and vastly higher maintenance costs which have to be shared by fewer passengers.

[Will]

Further investigation shows that there are two sets of figures for Brittany Ferries. The preliminary French results, which are those quoted in the Ouest France article, and the results presented to Companies House in Britain, by BAI Ltd., which were the source of the preliminary figures I gave in the post above. I'm sure there are good reasons for the two sets of figures, though one would expect them to be rather closer.

A recent article in Lloyd's List looked at the companies' results, and quoted the chairman of the French operation, Alexis Gourvennec, as saying that he discussed the high costs of operating its ships under the French flag at government level. He had, reportedly, received an undertaking from the French transport minister that BF would be exonerated "from the portion of social charges for which the government does not already reimburse it" and would be looking at further ways of bringing its costs in line with other EU ferry companies. The report said that crewing under a French flag was costing 50% more than in Italy and 40% more than in Britain. Mr Gourvennec said that P&O's withdrawal had helped BF increase its traffic in all categories and achieve better results than most of its competitors.

However, the official UK 2005 passenger statistics do not bear this out. Taking the BF routes to France, and the nearest competitors, we see the following;

Portsmouth-Cherbourg 339,000 (down from 734,000)
Portsmouth-Le Havre 680,000 (up from 631,000)
Portsmouth-Caen 976,000 (down from 1,049,000)
Portsmouth-St Malo 416,000 (down from 489,000)
Portsmouth-Bilbao 220,000 (up from 173,000)
Plymouth-Roscoff 476,000 (down from 480,000)
Plymouth-Santander 158,000 (up from 136,000)
Poole-Cherbourg 321,000 (down from 437,000)
Poole-St Malo 76,000 (down from 83,000)

This shows that the only BF route which the UK statistics show as having an increase is the Spanish one, and, despite P&O's troubles and LD Lines' shaky start, the Le Havre route was the only western channel route to have carried more passengers than the previous year. This can probably be put down to discounting by P&O. Interestingly, Plymouth-Roscoff managed only a small decrease. The Channel Islands routes were also down, and Newhaven-Dieppe carried just under half the passengers in 2005 than it did in 2004.

I personally think that Speedferries and low-cost airlines account for much of the decline in BF traffic, though the overall picture shows a decline in passenger travel between Britain and Europe, and in particular between Britain and France. On the Eastern channel, Dover-Calais was well down, but the other routes showed significant increases in passenger numbers:

Dover-Boulogne 717,000 (up from 243,000)
Dover-Calais 11,827,000 (down from 13,446,000)
Dover-Dunkirk 813,000 (up from 586,000)
Ramsgate-Ostend 193,000 (up from 148,000)

I agree that figures for numbers of vehicles are a more reliable indication than number of people, but these are not included in the national statistics.