Forbes Article On Viking Cruise Monetary Issues

[CCWineLover]

Interesting article in Forbes about Viking and the huge personal losses that Torstein Hagen has suffered.

Wondering what the ramifications are, especially for those of us who have Future Cruise Credits . . .

I guess we'll just have to see.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2020/09/24/viking-cruises-founder-loses-66-of-wealth-as-pandemic-hits-norways-richest/#7b05b9ed38e0

 

Sept 24, 2020:  Viking Cruises Founder Loses 66% Of Wealth As Pandemic Hits Norway’s Richest

[Owlfred]

Disconcerting to say the least. We just moved our March '21 Atlantic crossing/Mediterranean cruise  to March '22  and, hopefully, Viking will be back on their "feet" by then. I'd surmise that the ongoing cash burn is significant, and that they will have to seek out some more white knights to survive. Fingers crossed.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Owlfred
better

[The Other Tom]

Notice the term "wealth".  His holdings (stocks, etc) are valued by the market and isn't real cash until they are sold.  And most likely he couldn't have converted all of his holdings to cash anyway.  So I take articles like this with a grain of salt.

IMO, the real measure is how much money the company has in the bank, how much they are making, and what their expenses are.  This article doesn't mention that.

[Cienfuegos]

1 hour ago, The Other Tom said:

Notice the term "wealth".  His holdings (stocks, etc) are valued by the market and isn't real cash until they are sold.  And most likely he couldn't have converted all of his holdings to cash anyway.  So I take articles like this with a grain of salt.

IMO, the real measure is how much money the company has in the bank, how much they are making, and what their expenses are.  This article doesn't mention that.

 

The "burn rate" of how quickly firms are using their net cash is a key measure of cruise lines, airlines, etc which are in financial distress.  Barron's magazine had an article about the burn rate for Norwegian Cruise Line, Carnival, and Royal Caribbean and mentioned the privately held lines didn't release that info.  It was discussed at length in this forum a few months ago.

 

My recollection is the publicly owned firms have liquidity to meet obligations through March 2021 and into that Fall, assuming no significant changes in burn rate or fall off in new bookings or future cruise credit conversions.

[Cienfuegos]

Here's the link I mentioned about cruise lines, burn rates, and the need to convert deposits into vouchers

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2744444-use-of-fcv/page/4/?tab=comments#comment-59871872