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Show news archive News & Seafood Insight

Record profit and continued growth in the North Atlantic activities

29.04.2020

Royal Greenland presents a record profit before tax of DKK 404 million for 2019. The profit is augmented by the sale of the two trawlers Sisimiut and Qaqqatsiaq, which gave proceeds of DKK 141 million, but also reflects an ordinary operating profit that is the best in the history of Royal Greenland.

With its North Atlantic Champion strategy, Royal Greenland has the ambition to be the world's leading supplier of wild-caught North Atlantic seafood, based on cold-water prawns, Greenland halibut and snow crab. For the seventh consecutive year, this strategy has proved to be sustainable. Performance was challenged in the second half-year, however, by the development of sales prices for cooked & peeled prawns.

In total, turnover increased by 3%. Core activities continued to develop positively and, in line with the strategy, constitute an ever-increasing
share of Royal Greenland’s turnover. Core activities currently account for 77% of turnover compared to just 41% six years ago. Supporting activities include pelagic fishing and the flatfish range exist to support the core business.

This performance highlights the strength of Royal Greenland’s product and market portfolio, and the company’s unique position with a high degree of vertical integration, whereby Royal Greenland constantly seeks to be closest to the resources, closest to the customer, and closest to the consumer.
The strategic initiatives are effective. In version 3 of The North Atlantic Champion, for each North Atlantic species initiatives are spelled out to increase the value of the resource to which Royal Greenland has
access.

It is part of Royal Greenland’s DNA that we constantly balance commercial strength against our extensive societal and social responsibility – not only for the benefit of Greenland’s society and our owner, the Government of Greenland, but also with deep respect for the many other local communities of which we are part across the world.

2019 was also the year in which Royal Greenland’s largest investment to date in two new trawlers to replace M/tr Sisimiut and M/tr Qaqqatsiaq was completed. The first new trawler, which is also called M/tr Sisimiut, was delivered in June 2019, while M/tr Avataq was delivered in December. A third trawler, to replace the prawn trawler M/tr Nataarnaq, is being built at the same yard as the first two, with expected delivery in 2021.

On the factory side, the continuous upgrading of facilities, particularly in Northern Greenland, has been
maintained in order to strengthen inshore activity. In Newfoundland, as a new strategic initiative Royal Greenland has established a factory for the production of live lobster. As a new company in the Group, A&L Seafoods in Nova Scotia has shown very positive performance, and most recently, Royal Greenland has entered into a joint venture with a company in Chile to strengthen the Group's crab activities.

The business development and group equity of DKK 1.7 billion, equivalent to an equity ratio of 31%, support Royal Greenland's strategic focus and financial strength to continue to work to achieve its goal: to be the world's leading supplier of wild-caught North Atlantic seafood, based on cold-water prawns, Greenland halibut and snow crab.

The outlook for 2020 was for a continued positive development in fisheries and sales of our products, but Covid-19 has presented a significant global sales challenge, particularly for the foodservice and industrial segments. The result for 2020 is expected to be affected negatively to a very considerable extent, although this
cannot be quantified at the present time since it depends on many factors; in particular the duration of
the Covid-19 pandemic, and is subject to unusually great uncertainty.

The situation is being monitored closely, and we are taking all of the measures necessary to minimise
the effect, so that Royal Greenland can be in as strong a position as possible on the other side of this crisis.

Royal Greenland A/S will hold its annual general meeting on Wednesday, 13 May 2020 at the head office in Nuuk.

For further information please contact CEO Mikael Thinghuus on mobile + 45 50 89 30 00.

Download the annual report for 2019 here

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