Carnival Corp. Files First Quarter Earnings and Reveals Big Investment

It was this past Friday that cruise ship company Carnival Crop. filed its first quarter earnings, showing Wall Street what the company has been going through with the coronavirus pandemic.

Carnival, which is the world’s largest cruise company, had paused sailings on March 13th after both the U.S. State Department and the Centers for Disease Control advised against cruising.

The company has approximately 6,000 passengers on vessels still at sea, which it is struggling to find ports for.

Share prices have sank 80 percent since the beginning of the year but on Monday they jumped 25 percent when it was revealed that Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund took an 8.2 percent stake in the company.

“We have never previously experienced a complete cessation of our cruising operations, and as a consequence, our ability to be predictive regarding the impact of such a cessation on our brands and future prospects is uncertain,” Friday’s filing read.

“In particular, we cannot predict the impact on our financial performance and our cash flows required for cash refunds of deposits as a result of the pause in our global fleet cruise operations, which may be prolonged, and the public’s concern regarding the health and safety of travel, especially by cruise ship, and related decreases in demand for travel and cruising.”

The filing had no preface with any advance notice to investors or press, nor was there a time for an earnings call been announced to discuss the results.

Carnival told Skift on Monday that an earnings call for its first quarter has not yet been scheduled.

For the quarter, profit dropped from $336 million in the first quarter of 2019, to a loss of $781 million in the first quarter of 2020. Earnings per share was a loss of $1.14, compared to $0.48 in the same period last year.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Carnival Corp. (NYSE: CCL) and have not been compensated for this article.