Interim report of Copenhagen Airports A/S (CPH) for the period 1 January – 30 September 2020

Stock Exchange Announcement
Copenhagen, 12 November 2020

The Board of Directors has today approved the interim report for the period 1 January – 30 September 2020.

Summary of first nine months of 2020

Some 6.7 million passengers passed through the terminals at Copenhagen Airports (CPH) in the first nine months of 2020, a decline of 71.3% from the year-earlier period. CPH continues to be hard hit by the knock-on effects of the coronavirus pandemic that took hold in March and locked down most of the world. Travel activity began to pick up over the summer period, but as the COVID-19 flared up again and travel restrictions were significantly tightened, the recovery in travel demand evaporated. In an effort to mitigate the decline in passenger revenue, CPH has taken measures to cut both investments and operating costs and in late August unfortunately had to let go of more than 600 positions in response to the significantly lower level of activity.

The dramatic drop in passenger numbers took a toll on CPH’s results for the first nine months of the year. CPH derives most of its earnings from two main sources. One is traffic, which is driven by the number of departing passengers. The other is the shopping centre and the commercial activities, which have been severely reduced due to the low passenger numbers. This is severely impacting earnings, and CPH has used its bank facilities to keep the airport in operation since the COVID-19 outbreak, although CPH did make use of the government’s support packages.

CPH generated a loss before tax of DKK 453.6 million for the first three quarters of 2020, compared with a profit before tax of DKK 1,065.3 million for the same period of 2019. The loss should be seen in light of the sharp decline in revenue from both the aeronautical and the non-aeronautical parts of CPH’s business. Overall revenue came to DKK 1,325.0 million – a 59.8% decline from DKK 3,298.9 million for the first three quarters of 2019.

In May 2020, CPH entered a two-year facilities agreement totalling DKK 6.0 billion with a club of banks. Simultaneously, CPH entered into waiver agreements with existing lenders, providing CPH relief from certain loan covenants until and including Q1 2021. The new facility, the strong support from CPH’s shareholders and the waiver agreements ensure that CPH will continue to be able to meet its financial and investment commitments in a foreseeable period.