CSAV reports losses of $1.24 billion

16 Feb 2012 - Shipping

• Chilean carrier sees Q4 results improve as restructuring plan starts to pay off

Compañía Sudamericana de Vapores (CSAV), the Chilean ocean carrier, has announced losses of US$1.24 billion for the 2011 calendar year.

However, losses of $145 million in the final quarter of the year were a vast improvement on the $300 million losses recorded by CSAV in both the second and third quarters.

CSAV claim that the relative success seen in Q4 was a sign that its newly introduced restructuring plan is already starting to have an impact.

The plan was set up to help the company cope with what it calls a “complex scenario that the industry is facing throughout the world”.
As with other shipping lines CSAV explained that slow demand and rising fuel costs had hit the firm hard.

“We are a new company today. Through this restructuring we are better prepared to face the scenario affecting the industry and on a better footing for benefiting when market conditions improve,” said Oscar Hasbún, CSAV’s General Manager of Shipping-Containers.

The restructuring includes both operational changes as well as new capital.

Operational changes include a reduction of containership capacity by 50 percent, with 33 percent achieved in Q4.

Additionally, joint services now account for 90 percent of CSAV operations, compared to just 30 percent at the start of the year.

CSAV is also making a capital increase of $1.2 billion which, once completed, will see the spin-off of its terminal and tug operator subsidiary SAAM, according to the IFW.

With the end of the first pre-emptive option period and the placement with third parties, CSAV has so far raised $788 million. It is currently carrying out the second pre-emptive offering to shareholders which will last until today.