ICTSI sells Cebu port stake

Ports operator International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI) said it was selling its stake in a container terminal in Cebu, a stock exchange filing showed on Friday.

ICTSI, led by billionaire Enrique Razon Jr., said its 51-percent stake in Cebu International Container Terminal, along with shares of other stockholders, would be sold to Cebu Asian Rim Property and Development Corp. and Hong Kong Land (Philippines) BV.

The buyers would own 100 percent of Cebu International Container Terminal upon completion of the deal, the filing showed.

No sale price was disclosed and company officials did not immediately comment.

Cebu International Container Terminal is the registered owner of a parcel of land of about 200,000 square meters.

ICTSI reported that net income in the nine months through September rose 22 percent to $128.8 million as revenues and margins improved.

ICTSI 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 revenues 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.

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.