Color Line's parent company reported sharp improvement in its results for the first half of 2018.
The privately owned Norwegian ferry owner's holding company, Color Group, logged a pre-tax profit of NOK 146m ($18m) compared to a NOK 80m loss in the same period in 2017.
A substantial part of the result this year comes from atransaction to buy sister ferry operator Kristiansand Line, owner of the 37,000-gt ferry Superspeed 1 (built 2008).
TradeWinds reported in June that Olav Nils Sunde-led Color Group took over the company in a NOK 580m ($71.15m) transaction.
Color Group's operating revenue increased from NOK 2.12bn to NOK 2.25bn.
The company had a book equity of just over NOK 1.94bn at the end of June this year.
Color Line is one of Europe’s leading short-haul shipping lines for passengers and ro-ro cargo, with six ships on the water and a hybrid ferry on order at Ulstein Verft in Norway with capacity for 2,000 passengers and 500 cars.
The newbuilding is to be employed on the route from Stromstad, Sweden, to Sandefjord, Norway. With a price tag of more than NOK 1bn, the ship is set for delivery next year.
In July, subsidiary Color Line purchased the 1,775-lane-metre scrubber fitted ro-ro Finncarrier (built 1998) for €15m ($17.5m) and chartered it back to the Grimaldi Group until January.
Sunde took the group private in the 1990s. Last December, Sunde announced he considered an initial public offering for the company, but these plans were shelved in March mainly due to market conditions. Instead the Color Group raised NOK 700m in the bond market.
