Revenue rises, profits fall at DNV

Of the 27% revenue growth, the Norwegian classification society attributed 9% to organic growth and 18% to its acquisition of energy consultancy KEMA in March 2012, an equity-financed deal that affected cash flow significantly.

Newbuilding classification contracts for the company totalled 316 ships and mobile offshore units totalling 8.8m gt, giving DNV an estimated 17% share of the newbuilding market by numbers and a 22.5% share by tonnage. DNV's classed fleet fell fom 6,134 in 2011 to 6,115 in 2012, a fall it believes is due to high scrapping levels; by tonnage the Norwegians have 14.5% of the world fleet and by numbers 9%.

"Currently, the shipping industry is not experiencing overall growth. It is still suffering from tonnage overcapacity and weak developments in the global economy and trade. These will affect the shipping market for another one to two years," predicted group ceo Henrik Madsen, adding that in line with market priorities, DNV continues to invest in research and development of more efficient and environmentallly friendly shipping technology.

Echoing the prevailing industry trend, Madsen reported strong growth from the company's offshore activities, "DNV's direct revenue from oil and gas activities is now almost the same as the revenue we generate from maritime-related services, the activity level in the oil and gas industry also made the offshore and LNG shipping segments stand out as two of the few shipping segments that performed well in the past year. This contributed to our maritime business producing good results despite the overall weak developments in shipping in 2012."

Announced in December 2012, the merger of DNV and German class society Germanischer Lloyd is currently under scrutiny from competition authorities. The merged company, DNV GL Group, would overtake current leaders ClassNK to take top spot on the class society tonnage rankings.

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