Carnival Corp plans to sell 13 vessels worth at least $1bn but is actually removing only 11 ships from its entire fleet, according to VesselsValue.
The Arnold Donald-led owner of 105 ships said it wanted to become a "leaner" company after losing billions of dollars amid the coronavirus pandemic.
It said it plans to sell nine ships in the next 90 days and has already sold four other ships prior to fiscal 2020, which began on 1 December.
Carnival is indeed selling four other ships within the three-month period, according to VesselsValue, but two of them are Princess Cruises vessels headed to fellow Carnival brand P&O Australia: the 2,600-berth Star Princess (built 2002) and Golden Princess (built 2001).
The sisterships have market values of $223m and $202m, respectively.
The other two vessels — P&O Cruises Australia's 1,266-berth Pacific Aria (built 1994) and 2,050-berth Pacific Dawn (built 1991) — are being sold to the UK's Cruise and Maritime Voyages. The ships are valued at $41.5m and $26.9m, respectively.
Confirmed sales
The New York-listed cruise major has named only two of the 13 ships to be sold while withholding financial details, but VesselsValue lists 10 assets to be sold with a combined market value of $942m.
On Tuesday, Carnival confirmed selling P&O Cruises UK's 2,272-berth Oceana (built 2000) last month to an undisclosed buyer. The ship has a market value of $139m and is being bought by a Greek concern, according to VesselsValue.
Nine days earlier, Francesco Ferrari, mayor of Piombino, Italy, announced that Costa Cruises has sold the 75,200-gt Costa Victoria (built 1996) to San Giorgio del Porto shipyard for scrapping at its Piombino Industrie Marittime facility.
The Costa Victoria is worth $69.3m on the open market but has a scrap value of $8.97m.
The four ships sold before fiscal year 2020 include: P&O Cruises Australia's 2,053-berth Pacific Jewel (built 1990) and 1,258-berth Pacific Eden (built 1993); P&O Cruises UK's 1,928-berth Oriana (built 1995) and Holland America Line's 793-berth Prisendam (built 1988).
VesselsValue lists their respective market values at $21.5m, $29.4m, $56.3m and $10.4m.
Their respective buyers are Jalesh Cruises of India, Astro Ocean Cruises of China, Phoenix Reisen of Germany and Cruise and Maritime Voyages.
Carnival also said it has entered into "preliminary agreements" to sell three other ships but would not disclose the vessels' names.
Surplus ships
Carnival's plan to slim down its fleet will leave it with 94 ships, which is more than needed to meet costs while paying off billions in debt with many vessels laid up.
"Maybe we'd have to operate 25 of the ships in our fleet to generate a little over 40% of our cash flow in order to cover the pause costs for the rest of the fleet and all our shoreside SG&A [selling, general and administrative expenses]", chief financial officer David Bernstein said during a call with analysts.
"We'd still be cash flow break-even."
