The British cruise line company Cruise and Maritime Voyages is in talks with potential lenders and investors as it scrambles to secure funding to see it through the coronavirus pandemic.
The company, which employs 4,000 people in the UK, Australia and the US, is in emergency discussions with prospective investors and lenders after a potential loan deal collapsed.
CMV failed to secure a £25m loan from Barclays bank under the coronavirus large-business interruption loan scheme, setting off a search for other sources of funding.
The travel industry has been among the hardest hit by the pandemic, with revenues completely wiped out by the virus and bleak prospects for the cruise industry in particular, after a flood of negative publicity.
Analysts at Barclays last month said it could take years before first-time passengers opted for cruise holidays, and that companies would probably have to make significant changes to routes and health security protocols.
Cruise ships owned by the FTSE-listed Carnival were the site of severe outbreaks of Covid-19. More than 700 people on Carnival’s Diamond Princess contracted the illness, 13 of whom died.
Carnival’s shares have lost almost 60% of their market value during 2020, and the company is slashing thousands of jobs worldwide as it tries to cut costs.
Carnival is understood to be one of the existing creditors, along with Macquarie, the Australian investment bank. A source with knowledge of Barclays’ discussions said the bank had tried hard to reach a deal before it fell through.
There were no reported cases of coronavirus on any of CMV’s ships, but it has suspended all of its cruises up to 25 August. The company, based in Purfleet, Essex, is still selling tickets for winter 2020 and summer 2021 on its website, but will allow travellers to cancel at short notice in exchange for vouchers for future cruises.
CMV runs seven small and medium-sized cruise ships, from the 550-passenger Astoria to the 1,450-passenger Amy Johnson.
The private equity firm Novalpina Capital was involved in talks with creditors over a potential deal before the Barclays loan collapsed, Sky News first reported.
A spokesman for CMV said: “As the majority of other cruise lines have already done or are presently doing, CMV is also looking for additional financing to improve its liquidity position until sailing will resume again.
“As such CMV is presently in discussions and negotiations with a number of financial institutions and banks and is confident to finalise these discussions very shortly and so is unable to comment on or disclose details of these discussions with individual parties until they are finalised.”
Barclays and Novalpina Capital had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
