Carnival (CCL) to Sell Sun Princess & Sea Princess Ships
Carnival Corporation & Plc’s CCL Princess Cruises recently announced the sale of two of its ships — Sun Princess and Sea Princess. However, the company has refrained from revealing the name of the buyer.
The sales of the aforementioned ships are in line with the company’s plan of eliminating less efficient ships from its fleet. Princess Cruises president Jan Swartz said “Both ships defined the premium cruise experience with Australians and New Zealanders spending close to 14 million nights aboard these ships. While it is never easy to say goodbye to any ship in our fleet, this will allow us to deploy newer ships enhancing our offerings for Australia cruisers and focus on bringing into service exciting newbuilds like the upcoming delivery of Enchanted Princess.”
Due to the sale of these two ships, the Princess Cruises will cancel published itineraries, which include Sun Princess sailings from Dec 28, 2020 through Aug 14, 2021 and Sea Princess sailings from Dec 23, 2020 through Nov 9, 2021. The company will provide options to book another Princess Cruise when operations resume. Guests who choose not to book another Princess Cruise will be issued a refund.
Sun Princess, which was homeported in Australia in October 2007, also sailed in Alaska and Panama Canal. Meanwhile, Sea Princess sailed in Europe, Alaska and Caribbean before joining the Sun Princess in Australia.
Price Performance
Coming to price performance, shares of Carnival have slumped 71.9% so far this year, compared with the industry's decline of 45.4%. Notably, the company has been negatively impacted by the coronavirus outbreak. Although the company cannot estimate the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak at this time, it is likely that the pandemic will have an adverse effect on the company’s operations in rest of 2020. Also, the pandemic is likely to cause delay in ship deliveries as the shipyards have been impacted.
Carnival — which shares space with Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. NCLH and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. RCL — has a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) at present.
A Key Pick
A better-ranked stock in the leisure space is Twin River Worldwide Holdings, Inc. TRWH, which carries a Zacks Rank # 2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Twin River Worldwide’s 2021 earnings are expected to soar 273.5%.
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Carnival Corporation (CCL) : Free Stock Analysis Report
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