A difficult year for J. Lauritzen
Dansk version
JL recorded an EBITDA of DKK 209.8 million, down DKK 85.5 million on the 2001-result. The negative development is primarily due to difficult market conditions.
Since the unfavourable market conditions are expected to continue, J. Lauritzen has decided to write down part of the fleet with DKK 94.8 million. The write-down is based on a conservative evaluation of the individual assets. Prior to write-down, the book value of the fleet, in general, was lower than brokers' evaluation and also lower than its net present value.
In the light of the development of the USD exchange rate, goodwill has been written down with DKK 20 million and relates to investment originally made in USD.
The net result for 2002 was a loss of DKK 155.9 million. Disregarding the write-down, the result for the year is in line with the Company's earlier expectations.
Copenhagen, 24 March 2003
