Tallink published its 2023 unaudited financial results to the stock exchange today, Thursday, reporting a profit of €78.9 million, up from €13.9 million in 2022.

The group's unaudited revenue rose in 2023 to €835.3 million, from €771.4 million the previous year, and it reported an unaudited Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) of €214.5 million, up from €135.8 million in 2022).

The group reports that its net debt to EBITDA ratio amounted to 2.8 as of December 31, 2023.

Tallink Grupp's total investments in 2023 came to €28.1 million.

Commenting on the latest financial results, Tallink Grupp CEO Paavo Nõgene said: "The financial results that we are reporting today have come at the price of significant effort, continued hard work, countless sleepless nights and many sacrifices made by all Tallink Silja Line employees, so all credit for this milestone result must go to all our hard-working colleagues across all our home markets over the last four years, and in 2023."

"Our 4,900 employees have slowly and steadily rebuilt this strong foundation that we can now build our future on," Nõgene went on, via a press release.

Nõgene noted that the travel and transport sectors continue to be under pressure in the current economic environment, meaning one of Tallink's main challenges is to remain competitive and profitable, adding the company has "found the right course and strategy for ourselves for managing these risks for the foreseeable future with the mix of vessels in operation and vessels chartered, and this approach has helped us achieve the positive results despite all the challenges."

The Tallinn-Helsinki route saw the strongest recovery in 2023, Nõgene said, while the Tallinn-Stockholm is seeing rising demand, leading to the addition of a second vessel, on a trial basis, to that route for the summer high season this year.

Balancing the high and increasing costs fuel and other costs, including the new emissions costs arising from shipping from the start of this year remain a priority, Nõgene said; the company has trialed a number of new technologies on board its vessels, aimed at increasing energy efficiencies and reducing fuel consumption and thus also emissions, "but even greater collaboration and innovation is urgently needed to make a bigger difference. This is also one of our priorities for 2024," the CEO went on.

 Tallink Grupp also managed to repay a "significant amount" of loans it was forced to take out during the Covid pandemic, he added.

Tallink Grupp's passenger numbers rose to 5,705,600 during the year across all routes, from 5,462,085 in 2022), while passenger vehicle numbers rose to 840,881, from 819,229 in 2022 in 2023.

On the other hand, cargo transportation fell to 323,990 units last year, from 409,769 units in 2022.

At the end of the 2023 financial year, the group reported a total liquidity buffer (cash, cash equivalents and unused credit facilities) of €116.9 million (compared with €249.9 million as of December 31, 2022).

During the financial year 2023, Tallink Grupp repaid loans totaling €487.6 million, including the refinancing of loans component of €298 million.

Tallink Grupp and its subsidiaries contributed a total of €76 million in various taxes to the state  of Estonia budget, the company reports.

Tallink Grupp's management board, subject to the approval of its supervisory board, is to, will propose paying a dividend of €0.06 per share based on the 2023 financial results. 

As of the end of 2023, Tallink Grupp had 38,894 shareholders and FDR-holders, on the Tallinn and Helsinki stock exchanges.

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