Norway's Hoegh Autoliners has reported a fourth-straight year of losses.
The privately owned car carrier operator's latest annual report means the company has accumulated losses of $442m from 2014 to 2019.
The just-released report shows the Oslo-based company logged a pre-tax loss of $57.6m, against a pre-tax loss of $55m in 2018. Operating revenues was reduced from $1.06bn to $936m.
Chief executive Thor Jorgen Guttormsen told Norwegian financial daily Finansavisen that the company reduced its fleet by eight ships in 2019, bringing the the ship count to 44. It may cut the fleet by another two vessels this year.
Hoegh Autoliners has also secured space for lay-ups both in Southern Europe and in Malaysia, but Guttormsen said that currently only one vessel is laid up.
Nine car carriers from other owners are currently laid up in Rosfjorden off Norway, and sources said they belong to Wallenius Wilhelmsen and Gram Car Carriers.
“We will adapt the fleet to the market needs going forward,” Guttormsen said.
The company has implemented several cost cutting measures and in December last year the headcount at the head office was reduced by almost 40%.
Guttormsen was asked to become head of Hoegh Autoliners in September. He replaced Ivar Hansson Myklebust after disagreements with the board over the strategic route for the company.
He has spent his his whole professional life employed in the Leif Hoegh Group of which Hoegh Autoliners is a part. He spent more than 15 years as chief executive of holding company Leif Hoegh & Co.
Leif O Hoegh-chaired Hoegh Autoliners has been a joint venture between Leif Hoegh & Co and AP Moller-Maersk since the Danish shipping company bought a 38.5% stake in the company in 2008.
