The Irish Continental Group (ICG) which is the parent company of Irish Ferries, has posted a return to profit last year as the Group's annual revenues jumped.

ICG have reported €66.7m in profits for the year to the end of December when compared to a loss of €200,000 in 2021.

Revenues at ICG have jumped sharply by 75% to €585m from €334.5m and its basic earnings per share for the year have amounted to 33.6 cent.

The group said that the number of cars carried on Irish Ferries four routes during the year had soared by 181.6% to 573,400 cars from 203,600 cars in 2021. The increase arises from the lifting of Covid-19 travel restrictions.

In addition the impressive trading performance follows the expansion last April on the Dover-Calais service with the introduction on the UK-France service of a third ferry, Isle of Inisheer (as above photo). Whereas as the RTE News report on the profits and also a file photo of the Isle of 'Innisfree' which Afloat adds had recently an engine-room fire as previously reported. 

Passenger numbers have also jumped by 246.7% to reach 2,315,000 last year from a total of 667,800 during 2021.

ICG said the RoRo freight market between the Republic of Ireland to the UK and France and the Dover Straits fell slightly in 2022, with the total number of trucks and trailers decreasing by 1.1% to about 4,389,700 units.

More from RTE News on Irish Ferries and ICG's Lo-Lo /container divisions including EUCON which operates direct routes between Ireland and mainland Europe.

#ICGresults - Shipping operator Irish Continental Group (ICG) expected to report another strong year of growth writes The Irish Times when on Monday it releases full-year results (now available by clicking here)

In the first 10 months of the year, group revenue was up 1.6 per cent, car volumes by 3 per cent and roll-on/roll-off freight by 5 per cent.

It is thought that ICG’s new purpose-built ferry will double the freight capacity of the chartered Epsilon when it arrives next year, and increase tourism capacity by three and a half times.

Describing ICG as “one of the best-managed transport companies in Europe”, Davy has predicted Ebitda of about €83 million for 2016, up from €75.5 million in 2015. It has upgraded ICG’s price target to 600p (20 per cent upside) and reiterated its “outperform” rating.

“The backdrop of Brexit and rising fuel prices provides an excellent entry point,” Davy said. “ICG has an enviable track record of best-in-class operating efficiency, excellent capital allocation and an extremely strong (and we believe improving) competitive position.”

Investors are encouraged to look toward 2018.

“Cost headwinds mean that we are trimming estimates in FY2017. We expect ship chartering costs to rise and fuel headwinds, particularly in heavy fuel oil, of over 40 per cent,” Davy said. “However, there is little sign of declining volumes and we assume 1 per cent growth in cars and 5 per cent growth in RoRo [roll-on/roll-off] for FY2017.”