Meriaura Group Q2’24 earnings preview: Figures should improve across the board

Translation: Original comment published in Finnish on 8/20/2024 at 7:22 am EEST.

Meriaura Group will announce its Q2 interim results on Thursday, August 22. We expect revenue growth in both businesses, including both organic and inorganic growth. Profitability should improve significantly year-on-year thanks to top-line growth.

Broad-based growth on the horizon

We expect the Meriaura Group's Q2 revenue to increase by 30% to 19.8 MEUR. For the Marine Logistics business area, we forecast revenue of 16.5 MEUR (up 10%). Growth is supported by moderately good customer demand and a shift in freight volumes from Q1 to Q2, mainly due to the port strikes seen in Finland in March. We expect Renewable Energy revenue to increase approximately tenfold to 3.3 MEUR from the low starting level of the comparison period. The strong growth is due to the partial completion of the major solar thermal project in Bad Rappenau and the acquisition of Rasol at the end of 2023, which expanded the group's activities to include the supply of solar energy solutions (including solar panel installations). The Meriaura Group does not provide numerical guidance for the business, but there is typically verbal commentary on the near-term outlook.

We also expect profitability to improve

We expect the earnings level to improve over the prior year as revenue grows. At the group level, we forecast Q2 EBIT of 0.9 MEUR (Q2’23:  -0.2 MEUR) and EBITDA of 2.2 MEUR (Q2’23: 1.1 MEUR). In Marine Logistics, EBIT is expected to improve to 1.5 MEUR (Q2'23: 1.0 MEUR) and in Renewable Energy to -0.6 MEUR (Q2'23): -1.3 MEUR). In Marine Logistics, we believe that vessel utilization has reached a good level and that prices have been relatively stable. For Q2, we estimate net financing expenses of 0.3 MEUR and net income of 0.5 MUER.

Largest owner takes over as CEO in October

Jussi Mälkiä, Meriaura Group's largest shareholder, Chairman of the Board and founder of Meriaura, will assume the role of CEO of Meriaura Group as of October 1, when the company's current CEO Kirsi Suopelto moves on to new responsibilities. Mälkiä will also step down from the role of Chairman of the Board, which will be taken over by Antti Vehviläinen, who was previously Vice-Chairman. We will continue to monitor any changes in business performance that may result from the change in leadership.