Losses widen at HanseYachts despite turnover increase

The German boatbuilding group HanseYachts has posted its 2021/22 financial results, showing extensive losses for the period, despite significant gains in turnover, and a record order book and production volume.

The group says the significant increase in demand and the simultaneous worldwide shortage of the number of new boats produced are having a “distinctly positive effect” on HanseYachts. The firm increased its sales prices by around 30 per cent in the last twelve months.

In October, HanseYachts sold the loss-making French catamaran manufacturer Privilège Marine — which contributed a loss of €7.8m to the company’s bottom line.

Contrary to the previous year’s forecast, high absences due to the pandemic and war in Ukraine, increased material, personnel and other operating expenses led to a deterioration in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to minus €6.2m.

Adjusted for the discontinued Privilège Marine business unit and its losses of €7.8m, which will no longer affect the consolidated result in the next financial year, the consolidated net loss for the year amounted to €12.9m.

“In the past fiscal year, we developed our Confidence 2026 strategy, which is clearly focused on
growth, massively reorganised our management team and strengthened it with highly professional experts,” says Hanjo Runde, CEO of HanseYachts. “The termination of HanseYachts’ loss-making investment in the French catamaran manufacturer Privilège Marine, which was completed in October, was a logical step in our strategy to fully focus our development capacities on our core brands.

On the other hand, HanseYachts says it has an “impressively full” order book in which existing orders have also been optimised in terms of pricing: In the financial year it has once again increased to an all-time high of almost €270m. The firms says this means production can be planned for far more than two years and capacity can be fully utilised.

“We are increasingly focusing on significantly higher innovation rates and innovation leadership,” says Runde. “The extremely successful new face of the yachts of our Hanse brand impressively shows what we can achieve on this path. With over 200 boats already sold, our new Hanse 460 is an absolute bestseller, and the reactions to the recently launched Hanse 510 also prove our approach right.”

Turnover increased by 23 per cent to €132.4m in the past financial year. With a total of 568 ships produced and 561 invoiced (previous year 446 and 463) in the group, the forecast for the previous year was clearly exceeded.

Group-wide incoming orders of around €210.6m in the year under review were close to the record level since the company was founded in 1991, the previous year’s figure of €234.8m.

For the 2022/23 financial year, the Executive Board expects order intake to be between €130m and €170m. The Executive Board expects EBITDA in the low positive single-digit million range in the 2022/23 financial year.

“In addition, we have just secured our financing until the end of 2025 and beyond, as well as decided on a capital increase of around €7.7m,” reveals Runde. “Against the backdrop of the unbroken high demand for yachts, the realisation of significantly higher prices even for orders already on hand, our innovative strength and the prospect of supply chains that continue to relax, we look to the future of HanseYachts with great confidence.”

The group financial statements and the group management report for the 2021/22 financial year are available for download online.