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Earnings Call Transcript

Earnings Call Transcript
2020-Q2

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Operator

Hello and welcome to the DFDS Q2 Report 2020. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this call is being recorded. Today, I'm pleased to present CEO, Torben Carlsen; and CFO, Karina Deacon. Please begin your meeting. .

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

Good morning. This is Torben Carlsen. I'm here, as usual, with our CFO, Karina Deacon; and our Head of Investor Relations, Søren Brøndholt. Headline, Q2 ahead of forecast as straight picked up faster than expected. Background for that is, we have kept all operational locations including all ferries safe. Our freight volumes picked up through the quarter, particularly in June, and as we'll talk about in a minute, this trend has continued into July. We've seen encouraging passenger demand on the reopened routes, but as expected, exceptional losses from passenger activities, that for a large part were shut down for more than 3 months. The cost control measures and adaptations to our business that we have introduced have mitigated and contained the losses. I will now pass over to Karina on Page 4.

K
Karina Deacon
Executive VP, CFO & Member of Executive Board

Thank you, Tom. Yes. Needless to say that our top line was impacted in the quarter. We were down 34% while our EBITDA of DKK 507 million was a decline of 49%. These results were to a very large degree, impacted by the fact that our passenger activities were exceptionally high hit by the travel restrictions and the lockdown. If we look at the passenger revenue, it declined 86%. And if we only look at our BU passenger, so the Oslo and the Oslo-Copenhagen and the Newcastle-Amsterdam routes, they were down 98%. We basically only had 1 week's activity throughout the quarter. This has a significant impact on the EBITDA, more than 75% of the decline, DKK 366 million related to the decline of passenger activities. Of course, we also saw a reduction in our volumes on the freight ferry. They reduced 15%, and that also had an impact on EBITDA but from a slightly positive angle, the good news is that the decline in EBITDA reflected an operating leverage of around 39% compared to the approximately 55% that we see under normal circumstances. That was a reflection of our active strategy to reduce sailings and also lay-up vessels as the demand declined. Of course, we also had a general cost consciousness and in addition, we benefited from certain compensation programs, and that all reduce the negative impact. If we look at the logistics, their EBITDA were actually only down by DKK 7 million compared to 2019. They also faced a decline in the same ballpark as ferry, but following tight cost control and also benefiting from acquisitions of last year, the decline was modest. Finally, just on a more summary notes, the non-allocated increased compared to last year, i.e., they were better that is a little bit of a technicality. The savings we made at HQ have not been allocated to the business units in the first half. That will happen in the second half. So when we look at the full year, I expect that the non-allocated will be slightly ahead of '19 that we have guided for before. If we turn to Slide 5 for a few more numbers. As I said, the revenue decline of 34% that was, to a large degree, impacted by passenger. If we exclude the passenger activities, ferry revenue was down 27% and logistics was down 13%. The revenue decline in the freight business was most significantly in the business units, most exposed to the industrial volume, particularly the automotive sector. I have talked a little bit about EBITDA, and I'll come back to a few more details when we turn to look at the divisions itself. But one thing just worth mentioning right now is that when we look at the margins, EBITDA margin, it was down from last year. However, if we double click on that, we will see that logistics actually improved the EBITDA margin by 60 basis points over Q2 of last year.Depreciation is more or less on level with last year, which meant that our EBIT before special items was DKK 48 million. Looking at the finance cost, somewhat higher than last year, but it was a reflection of the currency adjustments, where in Q2 '19, we had positive adjustments and in Q2 '20, we had negative adjustments, mainly related to the Swedish krona. So if we exclude these currency adjustments, our net interest costs were more or less on level with last year. Special items and income of DKK 43 million that reflects the completion of the sale of Liverpool Seaways, which led to an accounting gain of DKK 410 million.And then we had a cost of DKK 67 million related to the organizational changes we announced at the end of June. We have here in Q2, expenses DKK 67 million, we expect further restructuring costs in the second half of the year. So it could bring the full restructuring cost number up to about DKK 100 million. Bottom line is that even after a 34% top line reduction, we actually end up with a profit before tax of DKK 11 million. A few words on the balance sheet and the financial position there. Looking at invested capital, a slight increase over Q2 last year, but a small decline compared to Q1, partly explained by a good development in our working capital.And that also reflected in the cash flow where we -- from a positive impact from net working capital could report a free cash flow of DKK 272 million and if we adjust for lease payments, DKK 100 million. That meant that our net interest-bearing debt in total of DKK 12.1 billion was slightly down from Q1. However, due to the lower earnings, then when we look at our leverage, it increased to 3.9x from 3.3x at year-end and from 3.5x at Q1 but however, given the relative stronger performance in Q2, it was below our expectations. If we look at ROIC, 5.1% down from Q2 of '19 of course, impacted by the significantly lower earnings. It's worth noticing that if we exclude BU mix, where we had 1.3% in work for this quarter, the rest of DFDS was just below 8%. Let's turn to our Ferry business. And I'll just say upfront that in this Q2 report, we have added the much asked for EBITDA numbers on our business units. So I'll talk about in the following. On the freight side, we saw a 15% reduction in volumes on a like-for-like basis. They were reduced considerably. We already talked about that after Q1 with 24% in April then we saw a slight decline. So we were down 17% in May. While in June, the demand picked up, where we only saw a decline of 3%. As mentioned before, the significant EBITDA reduction came from the passenger business, not only from the passenger BU passenger itself, but also from the channel and the Baltics. To illustrate in the channel, we had a decline in passenger numbers of 90%. And in the Baltics, the impact was less, but still impacted by minus 20%. And the reason for that relatively modest decline was that the essential travel continued to a large extent here due to migrant workers. Looking at the business units, North Sea down DKK 90 million. But if we adjust for the DfT income last year, the decline was [ DKK 44 million ], that reflects the volume decline of 19% significantly impacted by the high share of automotive volumes from Sweden, whereas the routes to the U.K., they were less impacted as they carry more consumer goods. The positive story in the quarter, that's from our Baltic business unit, where we actually saw volumes up 3% if we adjust for restructuring of the Paldiski-Hanko route. However, this volume increase was followed by price pressure. So when we look at EBITDA, we did see a small decline, but the majority of the decline came from the passenger business. On the Channel, volumes were -- and I have to say in this context, only down by 9%. So actually, 1 of the areas which did better-than-average. We were very active on cost savings. We saved on Bronco, and we laid up one of our ferries. So actually, our EBITDA from the freight business increased compared to June '19. So the decline comes from the passenger activity. We have touched upon the exceptional quarter for BU passenger. We did take part of cost and furlough schemes to the extent we possibly could. But even so, we had a loss of more than DKK 100 million, meaning DKK 228 million below last year. Finally, if we look to the mix, half hit in Q2 and volumes down 35% -- 34% to a significant extent caused by the high exposure to the automotive but also to the textile industry. We also saw a higher competition from land transport and in this situation here where decline -- where we see declining volumes, customers' equipments becomes idle. And the fact that travel restrictions prevented air travel for the truck drivers that meant that the land transport gained some market share. So all in all, we were down DKK 97 million on the EBITDA, despite a very active strategy for laying up ships and reduce sales. If we turn to Slide 7 and the logistics business, an overall volume decline of 17%, different intensity depending on the geography and also the exposure to different industries. So in Nordics, no surprise that due to the reduced activities in the automotive sector, we were down 15% on volumes. And that meant a reduction of EBITDA of DKK 10 million. It is worth noticing though that there was a one-off cost of DKK 7 million. So the underlying reduction was only DKK 3 million but also following the inclusion of an acquisition in Finland from last year. Continent, also impacted by the automotive industry as well as lower activity in the construction sector. So they saw a decline in volumes of 20%. Even so, EBITDA that was only down DKK 2 million following tight cost control, and there, we also have the help from an acquisition in the Netherlands from the end of '19.Finally, in the U.K. Ireland, we saw a volume decline of 12% that was actually a mix of some good and bad because if we look to the frozen food and retail sector, we were above 19% in terms of volume. But as we've talked about before, the agriculture business in Scotland and [indiscernible] suffered from the lockdowns. We have seen a good feed off towards the end of the quarter when the U.K. catering sectors started up again. Regardless for the U.K., that meant that we saw an improved EBITDA following tight cost control and also a more efficient agency structure. But I will also mention that we had some accounting help from IFRS when we look at the EBITDA. So that was a review of the business, and then I'll turn back to Torben.

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

If you turn to Page 9, we'd like to give a little flavor to what we have done to have an impact of only. In our world, only DKK 500 million EBITDA against a drop in volume of 34% or close to DKK 1.5 billion. First thing we did when the lock downs came was to make sure that we kept all sites and offices safe, as I talked about in the beginning. But we also immediately turned to how we could contain our cost. We laid off in total 17 vessels, 5 of these were passenger vessels. And then we have gradually reintroduced these vessels as demand has allowed to do this. We also cut CapEx everywhere where we could for legal and/or prior commitment restrictions. We then, when these elements worked and were in place, turned our attention to how the business should look in a post COVID-19 world. And if you turn to Page 10, what we did was that we continued the implementation of the strategy that we announced in '18 and '19 to simplify our business structure with an aim to focus our commercial focus -- to strengthen our commercial focus. We changed the concept on board our passenger vessels. We adjusted various elements in our business support functions to design the company that we think will carry us through the changed times. We did not set a target for how many people this would mean -- would be made redundant, but as a consequence of these changes, we were able to reduce 650 people with some adjustments afterwards in the markets, we couldn't announce at that day, comes close to 10% of the workforce. But again, it's not driven by an aim to reduce the workforce, but more to make sure we have the right commercial focus both on our freight and our passenger dilution. For this year, the impact of the changes will be a wash due to the one-off cost. But going forward, we should see cost savings from this of DKK 250 million. And obviously, also revenue strengthening. Before looking at the outlook, Karina will, on Page 11, talk about our financial position.

K
Karina Deacon
Executive VP, CFO & Member of Executive Board

Yes. As we have communicated before, we have, during the past months, adapted our financial position, and that continued here into Q2. So after Q1, we reported that we had increased our committed facilities by about DKK 1 billion. And after that, we had committed facilities in total of DKK 2.7 billion since then, we have secured further facilities. So now we have access to committed facilities of more than DKK 3.5 billion. So together with cash of about DKK 600 million now, we are looking into cash and committed facilities of about DKK 4.1 million today. As we talked about before, we -- in Q1, adapted our covenants -- or we talked about in Q1, sorry, we adapted our covenants related to the UN Ro-Ro acquisition to reflect the uncertainty of the current situation. We have made no further changes to that. And just to reconfirm, there are no other loan agreements where we have relevant covenant risk. So we feel that we are in a good and solid position, as we speak.

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

Thank you, Karina. And we have included this slide because, especially many banks have taken an interest in whether our cash positions were healthy, and we hope that this slide demonstrates that after an initial focus in the Phase I on this, we've luckily been able to focus our effort on how to adapt the business rather than focusing on our cash situation. We look to the outlook on Page 13. As I mentioned before, the positive volume recovery trend continued into July. Our automotive exposure tells us that the automotive rebound is slower. Therefore, we are still alert, still see some uncertainty for the remainder of the year. Other competitors have taken a different route than us and have closed down services, they are coming back. We can see that, although Turkey in our opinion, has the potential to actually come out quite strong economically from the crisis, the lira is weakening.And if there's too much focus on keeping interest low. The positivity around Turkey could change. We see that EU, U.K. make very little progress on a deal after the period that ends in December, which also creates some uncertain outlook. But all in all, the expectations we now have is that we'll lose less than 10% of the volumes compared to '19, as we previously expected, a drop-off of 15%. On the passenger side, also, as I mentioned in the beginning, we have seen an encouraging pickup in demand from passengers where it is safe to travel. But as the second outbreaks may intensify it is a vulnerable and fine balance that we strike with the passenger. And we have seen that on the Channel and between Amsterdam and Newcastle, the comebacks have been less stronger than in -- on the route between Denmark and Norway. So again, a cautious optimism but monitoring closely how the COVID situation develops. All in all, on Page 15, the knowledge we have and the outlook we see and get from customers and others make us adjust the EBITDA range from down to worth DKK 2 billion to a range of DKK 2.20 billion to DKK 2.5 billion with an unchanged investment outlook of DKK 1.6 billion. Uncertainty, as I just explained on the previous pages, remain elevated, but that's not a surprise, I guess, to anybody during these times. On Page 16, in summary, DFDS is well positioned to meet the challenges and to meet the opportunities that lie ahead of us. We have completed major adaptations to our business, which has strengthened our commercial focus. We begin to see some interesting customer wins on the freight side from this. And we have seen that the adaptations on the passenger side are paying off, for example with the new leg from Frederikshavn to Oslo. Adding revenue with the same capacity deployed. We think and have seen that new opportunities like that one can arise from structural market changes as operators and customers review their needs and the situation as the transparency of the impact of COVID-19 becomes clearer. We feel that we are in a strong position to pursue such opportunities that may arise, especially given the good development we have seen and the good recovery we have seen from the low point in April. With that, we turn over to questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Dan Togo from Carnegie. .

D
Dan Togo Jensen
Financial Analyst

Yes. So -- and congrats with the recovery, if you can say that but I'd like to start out with the compensation you have received. How much of an impact is there in the Q2 numbers? How much can we expect in Q3 and on -- in which business areas has it had, so say, the largest impact? That's the first question.

K
Karina Deacon
Executive VP, CFO & Member of Executive Board

Yes. Let me give a go on that one then. In total, we have included about DKK 150 million in the numbers for Q2. And when I look into Q3, it will be a very small amount that you will see in Q3. We have currently around 500 people on furlough going down from the -- up to 2,800. And also compensation from any fixed cost schemes have been included in Q2 and will not be there in Q3. So a minor amount in Q3, I would say. Then you asked, where have they been included, they have been included across the business most significantly as a stand-alone in the passenger business, where we see about 1/3 of the total compensation split out between salary compensation and fixed cost compensation.

D
Dan Togo Jensen
Financial Analyst

Okay. And then a question on the guidance. Tom, you mentioned that you now, so say, expect a drop of around 10% in volumes and freight volumes coming from 15% previously. So the 10% drop is -- would that sort of say, correspond with a mid-range for the EBITDA and whatever uncertainty it lies on each side. So 10% decline, would that match the mid-range of your guidance range?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

That's a good assumption.

D
Dan Togo Jensen
Financial Analyst

Okay. Super. And then finally, the whole business, you have been through the post-COVID scenarios, et cetera. Has that triggered any thoughts on how you will -- or effects on the Win23 ambitions? Should we look at that different now? How do you view that?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

As I think we also discussed after Q1, we have been through the different strategic initiatives to see if our mindset has changed. With a few adjustments, all of the initiatives are still relevant for us. In fact, some of the changes we have now made are reinforcing those. We've also said that to come back with what our absolute ambition is for 2023, we'll wait until our focus has shifted away from the COVID immediate challenges. But all the initiatives that are included in the Win23 ambition are still valid.

D
Dan Togo Jensen
Financial Analyst

But the underlying business is in another place. Is that correct?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

The underlying business, obviously, has gone the wrong direction. But the uptick from the initiatives we believe are still valid. But again, we'll come back to give you a summary of the 2 elements once the times have normalized a bit more.

Operator

And our next question is from Marcus Bellander from Nordea. .

M
Marcus Bellander
Senior Analyst

A few questions, if I may. First, looking at the channel freight volumes, they were down 9% year-on-year, I believe, whereas we've seen Eurotunnel reports minus 25% year-on-year. Could you say something about the dynamic there, why you seem to be taking so much market share?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

We have taken some market share. That's correct. The dynamic is that we have kept our 5 out of 6 vessels operating, we've reduced the number of departures. So I think we have reduced, at least in the beginning, off to 20%, 25% of capacity. Our main ferry competitor did something similar, but they did it through a reduction from 5 to 2 vessels initially, which meant that their frequency may have suffered a little more than ours, which have shifted some market shares. In addition, without me knowing all the details, I'm sure some of you have been on the Eurotunnel calls, but they've had some space restrictions for drivers in this period, which has also helped us on the freight side, whereas the opposite has been through on the passenger side, where we have reduced heavily the number of passengers that could travel with us whereas they have been less impacted on that side. So I think you will have seen Eurotunnel pick up market share on the passenger side, whereas we have picked up market share on the freight side.

M
Marcus Bellander
Senior Analyst

Okay. And has the lower fuel price also benefited you? Have you adjusted prices down to gain some market share there?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

Lower fuel prices benefit us somewhat on the channel because we also have passengers in ferry, it's a pass-through to the freight customers. But of course, when -- as you know, when fuel goes down, there can be a time lag and vice versa, but we have not, other than those automatic adjustments been out doing anything on pricing in this period.

M
Marcus Bellander
Senior Analyst

Okay. Understood. And then my second question is regarding the ship operation and maintenance costs, they seem very low in the quarter. They're declining quite considerably both in absolute terms, of course, but also as a share of sales. And I'm guessing lower fuel prices out there, but there seems to be more going on. Could you elaborate a little on what you've done there?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

That's a good cash. There are 2 elements. One is, of course, that when the ships do not operate, there's also less maintenance. And then there has also been an instruction to our technical organization in this period to be cautious about maintenance work that is not required to perform. So it's those 2 elements in combination plus, I believe, we may have had slightly elevated costs last year, which then further reinforces this trend.

M
Marcus Bellander
Senior Analyst

Okay. So should we expect a catch-up of maintenance costs in the coming quarters?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

I don't believe so.

M
Marcus Bellander
Senior Analyst

Okay. And then last question, and I'll jump back into the queue. You're saying you expect full year volumes to be down 10% year-on-year, and I think that's roughly how much volumes were down in the first half of the year, which, of course, means you expect full year volumes to be down 10% year-on-year in the second -- or second half volumes to be down 10% as well. But you're also suggesting that July volumes are up. Is that -- so why this seemingly negative view on the second half of the year when it started so strongly, have you seen stockpiling among customers or what's going on there?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

It's a consequence of the elevated uncertainty, it is very difficult for us to derive whether the strong pickup now is a demand driven, truly demand driven pickup or whether it's some backlogs from the lockdowns. That in combination, which could for us indicate that there are some risks that automotive and other industries will reduce capacity again, come September, October, that in combination with the COVID-19 developments we see around Europe have led us to take a cautious view on volume developments after July.

Operator

And our next question is from Lars Heindorff from SEB.

L
Lars Heindorff
Analyst

First of all, many thanks for now giving us the EBITDA, it's a big help, at least on the business units when we do the forecasting. A few questions on the Mediterranean. The first one is, if you can disclose the price that you have paid for the terminals that you have now acquired or the concession for the neighboring terminal? That's the first one.

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

That is an easy one. We cannot. I can disclose that it was paid in '19. So it doesn't have a cash impact this year.

L
Lars Heindorff
Analyst

Okay. Then secondly, still regarding the Mediterranean. I know, and also Dan asked you a little bit about the Win23 strategy, and you said that there's some of the mission or the mission valid. But if I understand you correctly, most of the earnings progress that were for the Mediterranean and Win23 were supposed to come from restructuring of the network and the terminals. Can you say if you still believe that, that will be achievable and I think at an earlier point before COVID-19, you were talking about a earnings data of towards DKK 150 million, DKK 200 million from these restructuring and the reduction of capacity in Mediterranean for this year. Is that something that is still valid? Because this is -- as far as I see it, this is mostly on the cost side. I know that volumes are down, but if you can still achieve those savings on the cost side?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

It's -- the challenge is, of course, when volumes are down, all the congestion and stuff we talked about disappeared automatically. So we have been able to do cost savings, but Turkey has been particularly hard hit by the automotive and the textile industries. I have a strong belief in Turkey coming back. Turkey will midterm win from the trade wars, from the COVID learnings. We know [indiscernible] are moving production from Asia to Turkey. We know Microsoft, HP and others are moving some of their hardware needs from Asia to Turkey. So the potential for our Turkish operation is unchanged. The timing, Sweden and Turkey are the 2 hardest hit areas that we have due to the heavy reliance on automotive. But the potential is unchanged in our view.

L
Lars Heindorff
Analyst

Okay. Will, Turkey -- will Mediterranean make money in the first quarter?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

Have we not -- we have that in the table, don't we?

S
Søren Brøndholt Nielsen
Director of IR & Corporate Planning

Lars asked about third quarter.

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

The third quarter, sorry.

L
Lars Heindorff
Analyst

I know, I can read the second quarter.

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

Sorry, I -- we cannot talk about that level at this stage. But Turkey is the one that has recovered latest together with Sweden on the volume side.

L
Lars Heindorff
Analyst

Okay. Then regarding the PACs business, I know if you can -- Yes, I understand that there's -- you've been up and running again. But can you share any insights into how the progression has been? And what kind of load factors do you actually need for the passenger to be back at breakeven on those 2 key rounds that you have? And is that likely to actually to be achieved here in the third quarter, given the progression that you have seen in passenger volumes now after the opening?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

It's a very delicate balance with the number of passengers. What we have focused on in this reopening phases, how many passengers do we need for it to be better to operate than to not operate. On the Oslo-Copenhagen, that number after our adaptations were around 300 passengers. And in July, we've had north of 700 per departure on average. That number will be dropping in August and has been impacted also by the worrying COVID numbers in both Norway and maybe particularly [ Deutschland ]. In -- on the channel, we are down to around 1/3 of regular passengers. But there, of course, we are operating for freight purposes anyway. And on Amsterdam new cars, we are down to probably 1/4 of normal load factors, still better than not operating, but obviously far from a breakeven situation. And it completely depends on how the COVID situation develops in terms of whether passenger will travel in bigger numbers. So too early to say, but not as big as we operate, whether we have 25% or 35% on the Amsterdam route, it's not something that is -- make it or break it in terms of our forecast for the year.

L
Lars Heindorff
Analyst

But on the Copenhagen-Oslo, with those amount of passengers you talk about here going into June and July and August also, will actually make money there? Or will continue to lose money with that kind of passenger volumes?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

It's -- there may be a breakeven month included here. I don't think I said August had strong numbers on Oslo-Copenhagen.

L
Lars Heindorff
Analyst

Sorry, misunderstood.

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

Yes. We've seen already the -- it's still much better than the DKK 300 million that we need, but it's already showing some signs of the COVID nervousness that the booking inflow is reducing.

L
Lars Heindorff
Analyst

Okay. And then lastly, just a housekeeping question. The cost reductions of DKK 200 million -- was it DKK 250 million? Obviously DKK 200 million had grown up.

K
Karina Deacon
Executive VP, CFO & Member of Executive Board

DKK 250 million.

L
Lars Heindorff
Analyst

DKK 250 million, yes. How will that be split? If you can give us an indication on how that will be split on the business unit?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

That's -- that we cannot give here. You may be able to get some guidance from our Investor Relations afterwards.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Casper Blom from ABG Sundal Collier.

C
Casper Blom
Lead Analyst

I'd like to follow-up a little bit on Dan and Lars' questions regarding the Win23 and talk about the passenger business. You mentioned as part of your [ adaptations ] to COVID-19 and the world after that you are aligning your passenger concept to be more for travel purposes rather than sort of the more, let's call it, cruise liners or whatever you want to call the passenger concepts before. How does that sort of -- how is that aligned with the ambition to sort of sell more for -- to passengers on board that you talked about in connection with Win23?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

I think it's -- that will still be possible. We have shifted -- we, of course, still need to have things going on on board. So there's still restaurants. There still entertainment for children. You can still sit on the Sun deck and enjoy a beer and white wine with troubadour playing. But the discotheque is closed. The night club has a different sense when you enter it, of course, to live up to all restrictions that you will also see as sure. On the other hand, adding the transport route to Frederikshavn means that you get families on board with cars and with probably a bigger spending desire to spend than some of the people who travel to be in the disco. So we think that, that's still a possibility. And of course, the extra revenue from that leg would compensate if we missed some of the onboard targets just from the fair amount we will get through that.

C
Casper Blom
Lead Analyst

How does these sort of, call it, updated concepts that does that in any way change your consideration with regards to renewal of the ferries that you use on Amsterdam, Newcastle, Copenhagen, Oslo?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

We are not actively pursuing that at the moment. Obviously, with the COVID-19, there may be second-hand tonnage available that was not available before. So we keep an half eye open for that. But at the moment, we focus completely the adaptations, making those work on board both those services and then getting the revenue back at the right levels. New tonnage is not on our mind right now.

C
Casper Blom
Lead Analyst

Okay. What about new tonnage in the case where you get a call to your M&A department? That sort of had an increasing activity or more incoming calls over the last 3 months?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

It's where we are in the same direct markets, it's pretty obvious what elements could happen. And there sometimes the dialogue is more intense, sometimes it's less intense. And as I think I mentioned in the presentation, we are pursuing opportunities that we think could arise from this.

C
Casper Blom
Lead Analyst

Would you also be sort of interested in looking at, I would say, more new opportunities, I mean, for example, when you entered Turkey through year and Ro-Ro, that was sort of new territory. Would you also be considering new territory in the current situation?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

I would find it surprising if we move outside our current geographies. So it's the Baltics, Baltic sea, it's the North Sea, it's the channel and its Mediterranean waters that we are looking for and logistics, the same. We're looking in the geographies we are already present.

C
Casper Blom
Lead Analyst

Okay. And the committed credit facilities that you have, would that also be available for such actions?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

There are certain restrictions in the old agreements, but in theory, yes, but we do not have any immediate ideas to spend any of that DKK 4 billion.

Operator

And our next question is from Stefan Roehle from KfW Bank?

S
Stefan Roehle;KfW IPEX-Bank;Corporate Credit Analyst

Sorry, my apologies, I just had probably the mute button still on. I have a general question. You talked about opportunities, but also about a sustainable impact because of the COVID-19 crisis. So looking at the sustainable impacts, I mean, if I look at, for instance, the Channel Islands, but also on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean you see -- you said that land transport has gained market share in the channels, you have the passenger issues, for instance. So in general, could you say if you expect any sustainable changes after the COVID-19 impact or is it too early to say? And of course, you also well opened the new Fredrickson -- Frederikshavn route. So you took, of course, market share from other players, from ro-pax operators. So do you think that, well, now Ro-Ro operators are more -- well, in favor compared to ro-pax operators? And the second question is on your new builds. So could you provide us an update on this issue if there have been any changes to your current plans?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

The -- if we start with the Mediterranean situation, Karina explained a little bit the background for the loss, the inability to fly drivers to Italy and France is a big factor. And also the downfall in Turkey's economy, which means that logistics operators have surplus capacity. So with time, we think that, that will reverse to normal. We are meeting with customers to see how we can get their trailers back on our vessels now that drivers can again fly. On the channel, we are 100% convinced that passengers will start traveling again as soon as they deem it safe and the governments do not impose restrictions on them. Frederikshavn was actually a void in the market that was left when Stena discontinued their ro-pax service between Oslo and Frederikshavn that we simply filled that void with our existing ferries. So we have not really taken anything from anybody from that move, and we expect that to be a permanent pickup in passenger potential for the DFDS and freight potential for that matter. With regard to the new buildings, there's nothing new to report. A lot of our DKK 1.6 billion guidance and also the CapEx that we are guiding for '21 is related to already committed new buildings. The #5 and #6 Ro-Ro very -- will, in all likelihood, be delivered this year. And then we have 2 ro-pax on order that to my recollection would be coming end of '21, early '22, according to the plans. We have no intentions of engaging in any other new building contracts.

S
Stefan Roehle;KfW IPEX-Bank;Corporate Credit Analyst

Okay. And do you think that you will shift your business more to a pure Ro-Ro business? Or is the passenger side still an important one? Or do you think that ro-pax services, for instance, still make sense for instance in the channels or Frederikshavn or what, wherever?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

We don't see any strategic shifts in our focus on both serving passengers and trade. We have made adjustments to the passenger concept, as we have talked about here. And then we have added the Leg Frederikshavn-Oslo, but we don't foresee any major other changes to our passenger business.

Operator

And our next question is from Ruairi Cullinane from RBC. .

R
Ruairi Cullinane
Analyst

Just 1 question remaining actually. I just noticed the decline in deferring revenues of 27%, excluding the passenger revenues is quite steep relative to volumes down 13%, 14%. You mentioned that you weren't sort of doing anything active on pricing. So is that almost entirely fueled or is there any mix effects in there?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

There is a revenue decline from the bunker surcharge. That's also in there. There has been a lot of -- in the markets. There's been a lot of focus on operating, getting goods moved, et cetera, and less so on actually pricing discussions, which often you would see in a declining market, but there's been so much other on people's mind that it has been less of a focus in many markets. So it is primarily driven by the few, the difference.

Operator

Our next question is from Marcus Bellander from Nordea. .

M
Marcus Bellander
Senior Analyst

I just wanted to follow-up on 1 of Lars' questions. Did I hear you say that utilization on the channel was 1/3 of normal in July or did I...

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

For the passenger? Sorry, the passenger numbers were 1/3 of normal.

M
Marcus Bellander
Senior Analyst

In July?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

Around this period, I cannot say that it's exactly those 30 days. But we've seen passenger numbers around those levels, yes.

M
Marcus Bellander
Senior Analyst

Okay. Because I mean we've seen Eurotunnel's numbers have been quite strong. And...

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

Exactly, yes.

M
Marcus Bellander
Senior Analyst

At least I've been reading other ferry companies speak of very strong July volumes. So I'm just surprised by the -- that just seems a little low to me.

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

I think on the passenger side, we have also I think we have also -- yes, we have this restriction. I talked about. We can only carry 380 passengers in each ferry. I think my recollection is actually that in terms of market share, we have held up against the ferry competitor also on the passenger side, but that the Eurotunnel has significantly gained, as I think I also tried to say before, we have gained on -- versus the Eurotunnel on the freight side, but they have gained on the passenger side. Of course, passenger is lower than it. It used to be, which makes the loss of market share less significant in a sense.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from Simon Rowe from Janus Henderson. .

S
Simon David John Terrant Rowe
Portfolio Manager

I just had a question actually about what you were just talking about in relation to the channel. This passenger restriction is that a regulatory thing? Or is that something that you've decided on? And what does it depend on?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

This is how we have changed the passenger areas to make sure that we live up to any regulatory demand. There's not a law thing. We can only carry 380. This is how we have designed it and the consequence has then been that it has been restricted, which for many weeks, was not a problem at all because there were no passengers. So it has only, you can say, turned an issue as we have approached the very high season. So we've been quite comfortable with how we have dealt with this, focusing a lot on the freight side.

S
Simon David John Terrant Rowe
Portfolio Manager

But you're saying that you think that will remain long term? I mean, what are you thinking?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

We are monitoring this continuously. And of course, now with this situation becoming a little more severe again between England and France, might I just, I haven't checked the last week or so, but my suspicion is that it becomes less of an issue to have this restriction. We still have many departures. And if we can fill them every -- we would still have more passengers than we have now. So it's not on every departure that this is a problem. We will now -- we are monitoring this, but we don't want to create an unsafe atmosphere on board for the passenger. We think that's priority #1.

S
Simon David John Terrant Rowe
Portfolio Manager

Yes. No, I suppose if that continues on a long-term basis, that it obviously has a big impact on the...

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

Yes, yes. No, no. But that will not be the case. That will not be the case. We'll be able to do differently once the COVID situation is different. And again, it's only a challenge in August. After August, we will not have any problems with any restrictions due to the much lower numbers anyway on passengers.

S
Simon David John Terrant Rowe
Portfolio Manager

Yes. I know, but actually, you made quite a bit of money there. You in the peak seasons with the cars and stuff. I mean, it's not...

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

Absolutely and that's, of course, why we -- that's the main reason for our results being much lower than last year. Also in Q2 is, of course, the channel passengers. And it will also -- has also been factored in that we will have a big drop in Q3 on the channel passenger income.

S
Simon David John Terrant Rowe
Portfolio Manager

Because it's not just -- in a sense, it's not just passengers. It's the cars that come with them in this.

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

Yes. We only have cars-- we don't have foot passengers. So it's -- yes, it's the cars. But again, once you get out of the high season, you -- it will have a much lesser impact.

Operator

And our next question is from Lars Hangar from SEB.

L
Lars Heindorff
Analyst

Just a follow-up, still on the Mediterranean. Can you give us a little bit of insight into the movement in market share that you have had versus the -- I mean, the only true competitor is on the land transport. Have you lost? And if you have lost, how much?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

Sorry, was that about Turkey?

L
Lars Heindorff
Analyst

Yes. Yes.

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

We have lost 6 to 7 percentage point market share.

L
Lars Heindorff
Analyst

And the reason for that?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

Well, the reason we -- I think both Karina and I have talked through. Happy to have you call also Soren to get more details. But it's -- again, we haven't been able to fly drivers. We haven't -- we've seen a contraction of the economy, which means that logistics operators have surplus equipment, which then make it cheaper for them to drive them to sale.

L
Lars Heindorff
Analyst

And the -- and if and when the situation with the flights for the drivers will be solved, do you expect to regain that market share?

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

We do, and it has gradually restarted. So we have campaigns and customer visits all over to see how we can hopefully get most of that back.

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

T
Torben Carlsen
President, CEO & Member of Executive Board

I think we will -- I think we will say thank you for today, and thank you for the very many good questions. And then we, of course, look forward to meeting everybody again after our Q3 announcements. Thank you very much, and have a good day.