Irish Continental Group PLC on Monday reported a modest decline in annual profit despite higher revenue, as strong freight and passenger volumes offset challenges in its container division and the impact of port disruptions.
The Dublin-based ferry operator said pretax profit for 2024 edged down 1.7% to €62.2 million from €63.3 million the year prior, while earnings per share rose marginally to 36.3 euro cents from 36.2 cents.
Revenue increased 5.6% to €603.8 million from €572.0 million, driven by record-high roll on, roll off freight and car volumes. However, the company cited a difficult trading environment in its Container & Terminal division, where rising costs and lower rates weighed on profitability.
Irish Continental declared a final dividend of 10.43 euro cents per share, up 5.0% from 9.93 cents a year earlier.
Despite port disruptions in Holyhead in December, the company’s Ferries division performed strongly, with revenue rising 5.1% to €433.5 million from €412.3m.
Passenger numbers rose 10% to 3.1 million, while car volumes climbed 9.5% to 707,300 from 645,700. Freight units carried increased 6.0% to 767,200.
Meanwhile, the Container & Terminal division posted a 4.8% rise in revenue to €203.5 million from €194.1m, but earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation declined 7.8% to €23.7 million from €25.7m due to higher costs and weaker rates.
Chair John McGuckian said: ‘The closure of Holyhead port in December 2024 through to mid-January 2025 had a serious impact on our customers at a key time of the year for both RoRo freight and passenger traffic and clearly had an impact on our financials for 2024 and into the start of 2025.
‘Irish Ferries is very well placed to benefit from the continued recovery in volumes back to 2019 levels. The Container & Terminal division is experiencing significant underlying growth and we are excited by the extension of our container concession in Belfast for a further six years to 2032 which we see as a vote of confidence in our operational expertise.’
Shares in Irish Continental were down 1.8% at 419.91 pence in London on Monday afternoon.
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