The Rasmussen group posted a record result for 2017, a year that saw it sell out of conventional shipping.
The Norwegian company last year logged a pre-tax profit of NOK 1.19bn ($148m) against a profit of NOK 648m in 2016.
Most of the profit came from financial investments and real estate.
The earnings leave Rasmussen with adjusted equity is now more than NOK 15bn.
In December of last year, Rasmussen sold its 11.5% stake in Danish bulker and tanker owner Norden for NOK 738m ($92m). The shares were its final toehold in shipping.
Managing director Dag Rasmussen said this week that the board of the Danish company disagreed with Rasmussen on important issues and that this contributed in the decision to sell. Rasmussen declined to elaborate on what issues the parties disagreed.
The company considers shipping to be a high-risk business that it wants to avoid for now. Rasmussen declined to explain why that is the case. But the company, which started as a pure shipping company in 1936, has proven to be risk-averse in the past.
The company is controlled by Dag’s father, 80-year-old Einar, and other members of his family.
The Norwegian company sold its last ship in 2004, when it sold the 150,000-dwt bulker Polystar (built 1994) went for $45m.
Norden investment
The same year, Rasmussen bought a 21.5% stake in Norden, but struck a shareholders agreement with fellow shareholder Motortramp not to sell within 10 years. The Norwegian company has had a seat in the Norden board since it bought the shares.
“We learnt a lesson not to a agree to such [a] shareholders agreement that is tying us up,” Rasmussen told TradeWinds in December.
The group has a minor stake in Tor Olav Troim’s rig company Borr Drilling and a 50% stake in the seismic company Shearwater GeoServices, a geophysical venture with GC Rieber Shipping.
