Mr Grimaldi doesn’t exclude the possibility of his further expansion in Greece, and if Attica would be for sale he would be ready to look at the opportunity that arises.
Interferry Names New Chairman And Board Members
The new chairman of Interferry’s board of directors is John Steen-Mikkelsen, CEO of Danish ferry operator Danske Faerger.
He was elected together with three new board members at the AGM held last week in Cancun.
He succeeds Mike Grainger – managing director of Liferaft Systems Australia and chairman of TT Line Spirit of Tasmania.
The three new board directors include:
- Bernard Dwyer, CEO of Spirit of Tasmania.
- David Sopta, CEO of Jadrolinija in 2017.
- Anders Ørgård, owner of Danish firm OSK-ShipTech.
- VILLA DE TEROR still doesn’t have a confirmed date for delivery, even if she went on sea trials.
- The CARTHAGE was briefly detained in Marseille on behalf the owners of the cargo ship hit by the ULYSSES. In the meanwhile ULYSSES was able to sail on her own power to Tunisia.
- Golden Star Ferries and rival Fast Ferries seem to have created an alliance to acquire HSC EXPRESS from Nordic HSC. The Incat-built fast craft was on summer charter with Navieras Armas. She is still in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
Last seven days I have been working in the Norwegian fjords, which at this time of the year are spectacular because of the autumn colours. Look at this Fjord1 ferry BOLSØY in the Geirangerfjord, passing the Seven Sisters waterfall.
FOLKESTAD is one of the ferries in the Voldafjord.
On my way to Ålesund I took the ferry STORFJORD, to cross the fjord with the same name (route Festøya – Solavågen).
Finally, this is the GLOPPEFJORD after a crossing of the Nordfjord (route Lote – Anda).
The Grimaldi Group boosts its freight services between Northern Italy and Sardinia with the introduction of a new line that will link Genoa to Porto Torres.
Ship: EUROFERRY MALTA, 130 trucks/trailers + 50 drivers.
When: as from 13 October
Frequency: 3x return/week
Bo-Lennart Thorbjörnsson interviewed the CEO of Attica Group, Mr Spiros Paschalis.
Molslinjen Buys Danske Færger
On 10 October 2018, the Competition Authority approved the transfer from all shares from Danske Færger A/S to Molslinjen A/S.
Sellers are Bornholmstrafikken Holding A/S and Clipper Group A/S.
Molslinjen currently operates the ferries Aarhus-Odden and Ebeltoft-Odden, and since 1 September 2018 also the ferries on Bornholm.
Molslinjen will continue the four Færgen ferry routes under the following names:
- Bøjden-Fynshav = Allinjen (formerly Alsfærgen)
- Esbjerg-Fanø = Fanølinjen (Fanøfærgen)
- Kalundborg-Samsø = Samsølinjen (Samsøfærgen)
Spodsbjerg-Taars = Langelandslinjen (Langelandsfærgen)
Until all condition shave been met, Danske Færger A/S will continue under the same management and in accordance with the same business principles as before.
Following the new orders for Finnlines signed with the Chinese shipbuilder Jinling earlier this year (three ice-class ro-ro vessels), Grimaldi Group of Italy is launching a new project for a series of ‘Super Star’ ro-pax ferries.
“They will be the evolution of the Star Class units built by Fincantieri in Italy and as for the capacity they have 300 cabins and roughly 5,000 lane metres capacity” Emanuele Grimaldi told at the annual EuroMed Convention, held in Athens.
“We would be very pleased to build them in Europe since there are several shipyards like Visentini and Fincantieri in Italy and also some others in Germany skilled for that” Grimaldi added, specifying that they are obviously looking “for a good price”.
The project phase for the Super Star class will take at least one year and afterwards the Italian ferry group will start negotiating with the shipyards.
After closing 2017 with 3 million passengers and 2018 expected to close at 4 million, Grimaldi Group of Italy is now watching at the 5 million as the new annual threshold to reach before the end of 2019.
The new ambitious target was revealed by Emanuele Grimaldi at the Euromed Convention held in Athens, Greece, where he also revealed that today the passenger business accounts just for 10% on the total turnover of € 3 billion.
Talking about the local market he said that Grimaldi Group’s future plans are to offer more services to Greek islands: “New route to Chania, new services to Cyclades Islands, new services to Corfù from Southern, Central and Northern Italy, and more connections also to Greece mainland”.
But Emanuele Grimaldi emphasized also more connection to Greek mainland talking about “increased cargo and passengers capacity from/to Venice and Brindisi and more global connections via Brindisi and via Euromed/deep-sea connections”.
At the traditional EuroMed Convention held in Athens this year, Grimaldi Group’s ceo Emanuele Grimaldi mentioned Minoan’s financial results speaking of a “10 year long race” recalling that the Greek subsidiary until 2010 had €500 million debts and €35.9 million operating losses per year, while in 2017/2018 is debt free and obtained “the best results in Greece among the ferry operators”.
Given this scenario, Grimaldi underlined again that “consolidation is a must for the ferry market” and that the group he heads is watching “at 20 potential firms to be taken over in the future”.
He also added that three of Minoan’s ferries will be equipped with scrubbers before summer 2019.
