The stock market listed Tallink Grupp is continuing to explore its strategic options to find a major new shareholder(s) to either partially invest in the world’s biggest ferry company, or take it over.

This follows its July 19 announcement that it is considering one or both of the above options. At the same time its reference related to attracting ‘new core investors for the company’ strongly suggests it is open to serious offers for serious investors.

OWNERSHIP UNDER SCRUTINY

At present, the Tallink Grupp is 38% owned by AS Infortar, with a further separate 23% reported to be held by three other large enterprises. Its market value is currently estimated at just over €700m ($829m).

The Tallink Megastar is the state-of-the-art most modern vessel operated by Tallink at present.

In total, Tallink is said to comprise of more than 11,000 shareholders, with the company’s 2016 sales turnover reported at €938m ($1.1bn). Onboard retail and F&B sales accounted for €521.5m ($584m) of that total last year from a record 9.5m passenger total. This represented a +5.4% rise across the ferry company’s 11 operational vessels last year.

SHAREHOLDING ALLIANCES?

It is no secret that there have been discussions on forming alliances to sell some – or all – of the combined shareholdings between these companies and potential buyers, as announced by the Tallink Grupp on July 6 [https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/07/06/1039770/0/en/Agreement-among-certain-shareholders.html].

In essence, some shareholders in the AS Tallink Grupp – Baltic Cruises Holding (with 16.1%) and Baltic Cruises Investment (with 5.5%) – have reached an agreement with another shareholder – Citigroup Venture Capital International Growth Partnership.

The Tallink Silja Europa.

According to Tallink Grupp Finance Director Veiko Haavapuu, this gives these shareholders first right of refusal for CVCIG’s shares should it decide to sell or transfer them at a future date.

However, even if these first rights are taken up, this would not necessarily mean that the majority ownership of Tallink would change hands, as has been pointed out by several analysts in the region.

TALLINK IS NOW ENTERING ‘QUIET PERIOD’

If a new majority owner does eventually materialise, then it could, of course, mean that the ferry company might move into private hands, so leading to a stock exchange delisting.

Meanwhile, the directors of the Tallink Grupp has announced that there will be no further announcements relating to this process, ‘until this is required or appropriate’ and it also says there are ‘no assurances’ any transaction will occur as a result.

TRBusiness conducted a detailed interview in Tallink last June with AS Tallink Duty Free’s Director of Business Development Magnus Skjörshammer.

This covered the value, trends and evolution of the ferry company’s onboard duty free sales programme and it can be found at the following link: https://www.trbusiness.com/regional-news/nordic/tallink-notes-changing-product-mix-as-booze-cruises-decline/121010