ICTSI 9-mo net income rose 22%

Global ports operator International Container Terminal Services Inc. said net income in the nine months through September rose 22 percent to $128.8 million as revenues and margins improved, a filing to the Philippine Stock Exchange showed on Monday.

ICTSI, led by billionaire Enrique Razon Jr., said revenues during the period hit $624.7 million, up 19 percent, while volumes grew 13 percent to 4.6 million twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, as international and domestic trade increased.

For the third quarter alone, net income rose 29 percent to $45.9 million while revenue from port operations was up 17 percent to $211 million.

ICTSI attributed most of the gains in volume to operations at Pakistan International Container Terminal (PICT) and PT Olah Jasa Andal (PT OJA), its new container terminal in Karachi, Pakistan and Jakarta, Indonesia, respectively.

Excluding the volume from the two new terminals and the effect of the cessation of the operations in Syria effective January, organic volume growth increased by just 1 percent, the company said.

ICTSI’s seven key terminal operations in Manila, Brazil, Poland, Madagascar, China, Ecuador and Pakistan accounted for 79 percent of the group’s consolidated volume in the first nine months of 2013.

In terms of revenues, the seven ports accounted for 85 percent, ICTSI said.

It said the revenue jump, meanwhile, was due to the volume growth, higher storage revenues and ancillary services, tariff rate increases in certain key terminals, and the revenue contribution from the new terminals in Jakarta, Indonesia and Karachi, Pakistan.

With the contributions from the newly acquired terminals and the effect of the cessation of its Syria operations, organic revenue would have grown by 8 percent during the period.

ICTSI also noted that consolidated financing charges and other expenses for the first nine months of 2013 increased 57 percent to $33.9 million from $21.6 million in 2012 due mainly to higher outstanding interest-bearing debt.

The company issued $400 million of 10-year bonds in January 2013 mainly to fund its capital expenditure program for 2013 and refinance medium-term loans.

Capital expenditures for the first half of 2013 amounted to $357.9 million, approximately 65 percent of the $550.0 million it had projected for the full-year 2013.