The ferries swap announced last Friday by DFDS and Moby represents the last chapter of the 2018/2023 business plan of the Milan-based group launched last year and related to the reverse merger into Compagnia Italiana di Navigazione.
In the first nine months of the current year the company controlled by Vincenzo Onorato and headed by his sons Achille and Alessandro sold four ro-pax vessels:
- AURELIA and HARTMUTT PUSCHMANN before the summer.
- MOBY AKI and MOBY WONDER next autumn.
In the 2018/2023 business plan was written that Moby would sell five unidentified ro-pax ships generating EUR 305 million revenues and roughly EUR 145 million of capital gains.
Two smaller and older vessels were set for dismissal in 2019, further two modern units in 2019 and the last two ferries respectively in 2020 and 2021.
For the next few years Moby was expected to charter-in some modern and higher capacity ro-pax units (most of them from Onorato Armatori), to be deployed on the routes linking Italy mainland to Sardinia and Sicily.
Two units built in Flensburg have already been delivered and further two units will be built in China by Guangzhou Shipyard International with delivery scheduled from 2021 onwards.