Irish Continental Group has reported pre-tax profits of €2.7m for the six months to the end of June, up from €1.7m the same time last year. Revenues rose by 2% to €141.9m from €139.4m last year.
The company said that earnings per share jumped by 66% to 10.6 cent from 6.4 cent in the first half of 2005.
During the first half of the year, ICG completed the restructuring of its crewing arrangements at its Irish Ferries Division. It laid of about 500 of its employees and replaced them by cheaper third party crewing agencies. It said the severance costs involved on this amounted to a net €29.1m.
The figure is net of a rebate of the statutory redundancy element of the severance package of €4.1m. ICG said that application has been made to the appropriate authorities for the refund of this rebate.
ICG said that half yearly revenues from its Irish Ferries division was €72.3m, down marginally from the 2005 figure of €72.5m. Profit from operations was €4.3m, up from €2.3m the first time last year.
The division's core tourist business in car tourism and this market has been affected by substantially more airline competition in recent year. It said it carried a total of 145,000 cars in the first half of the year, down 10%. The figure was in line with its reduction in capacity. Total passenger numbers were down 11%.
However, its Roll-on Roll-off freight market continues to develop with half yearly volumes up 3% to 110,000 units.
ICG said that fuel costs remained high and were €2m more in Irish Ferries than the same time last year, although it added that it was recovering a substantial portion of the increase through surcharges.
Turnover in the container and terminal division rose to €70.2m from €67.5m. Profit from operations dropped to €1.2m from €2m in 2005. It said that additional fuel costs and higher ship charter costs hit profits.
The company warned that it expects a challenging revenue environment in the second half of the year, mitigated by the flow though of its costs savings.
ICG shares closed up one cent at €11 in Dublin.
