P&O Ferries in £50m sale to Stena
PORTS and ferries group P&O has unveiled a major restructuring of ferry operations in the Irish Sea. London-based P&O has agreed to transfer around £50 million of its Irish Sea assets -including five ferries and their crews - to Stena Line.
The privately-owned Swedish transport company already runs routes between the UK and Ireland and will take on the ferries along with various port assets at Liverpool, Fleetwood and Dublin.
P&O, which runs seven routes in the Irish Sea including two to France, will continue to operate three vessels on the Larne-Cairnryan route, two ferries on the Larne-Troon service and one ferry on the Rosslare-Cherbourg service. P&O has also agreed to charter two other ships to Stena.
Shore staff at the three ports, along with others at Larne dedicated to P&O's Fleetwood to Larne service, will also be transferred to Stena.
P&O said it was too early to say how many jobs would be affected by the changes but said any duplication was most likely in office functions.
As part of the shake-up, P&O today launched a consultation exercise with employees regarding the closure of its ferry service linking Dublin to Mostyn in North Wales. The closure programme would see P&O's shoreside operations at the Port of Mostyn closed, along with its office facilities at Fleetwood, Lancashire.
P&O has been restructuring to focus on higher yielding routes. As part of a drive to achieve annual savings of £15m, the company has already closed some loss-making routes, including from Felixstowe.
Under the latest agreement, Stena's port operations at Stranraer in Dumfries & Galloway would be transferred to nearby Cairnryan with Stena taking a 50% stake in the port.
In March P&O saw group underlying profits slump to £9.2m from £160m a year earlier after a downturn at its shipping joint venture P&O Nedlloyd.
The ferries division achieved operating profits of £13.7m, compared with losses of £1.2m a year earlier as tourist trade returned following the adverse impact of foot-and-mouth in 2001.
