Shipping business Wellard has posted a US$2.3 million (A$3.6 million) loss as it prepares to wind up its dwindling livestock carrier business.
Shipping business Wellard has posted a US$2.3 million (A$3.6 million) loss as it prepares to wind up its dwindling livestock carrier business.
Releasing its half-year financials on Friday, the Fremantle-based company attributed the slump to money spent regaining full control of its flagship carrier, the M/V Ocean Drover, following an ownership dispute.
Winning the vessel back allowed Wellard to sell it on for $81 million to a Turkish agribusiness in January, paving the way for the company to explore new business ventures and potentially leave the ASX.
"The sale of the Ocean Drover will bring to an end Wellard's 46-year involvement in the global live export industry,” Wellard executive chair John Klepec said at the time.
Without the US$5.1 million (A$8 million) ownership-related impairment, Wellard said it would have achieved a US$2.8 million (A$4.4 million) net profit.
The Ocean Drover completed four trips between Brazil and Turkey in FY25’s first half. It’s booked for back-to-back charters for the rest of the financial year and will likely be sent to its buyers in July, provided shareholders approve the deal.
Once the sale winds up, Wellard’s only hope of future income relies on settling an unresolved compensation claim linked the Brett Cattle Company class action – a longstanding stoush that found the 2011 ban on live exports to Indonesia was unlawful.
Ocean Drover’s sale comes soon after Wellard sent its sibling vessel, the M/V Ocean Ute, to its new owners in September last year.
Following that ship’s sale, Wellard’s revenue took a 21.5 per cent hit, falling to US$14.1 million (A$22 million) in FY25’s first half.
However, the shipping company claimed that cost reductions across the business offset the revenue decline, spotlighting a 48.8 per cent drop in bunker expenses, a 42.1 per cent reduction in port costs and an 18.7 per cent decline in operating expenses.
Wellard shares are trading 1.72 per cent higher following the half-year results, fetching 14.8 cents apiece in a $78.36 million market cap.
Although shareholders have witnessed a 267 per cent return on their stock in the last 12 months (primarily owing to a mass buy-in following Ocean Drover’s sale announcement in January), the shipping company’s valuation remains far from the glory days of its 2015 market debut.
At the time, Wellard hit the boards with an agribusiness vision and a $556 million market cap after raising just under $300 million at $1.39 per share.
In the ten years since joining the bourse, Wellard has made a number of business-defining moves, such as selling its Ocean Outback cattle carrier for US$26 million in 2017 and opting to charter vessels over trading livestock the following year.
