By James A. Loyola
International Container Terminal Services, Inc.(ICTSI) reported a 29 percent jump in consolidated attributable net income to US$184.9 million in the first nine months of 2019 from the US$142.9 million earned in the same period last year.
ICTSI Logo (Photo courtesy of Wikipedia )
The firm said this is mainly due to strong operating income contribution from the terminals in Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Mexico, and Manila and Subic in the Philippines.
Profit was also boosted by new contracts with shipping lines and services at Victoria International Container Terminal (VICT) in Melbourne, Australia; continuing ramp-up at the new terminals in Papua New Guinea; and a decrease in equity in net loss.
The growth was partially tapered by the acceleration of debt issue costs associated with the partial prepayment of Euro-denominated term loan in July 2019 and the non-recurring gain from the interest rate swap related to the prepayment of the project finance loan at its terminal operations in Manzanillo, Mexico in 2018.
Excluding the non-recurring items, consolidated attributable net income would have increased by 34 percent in 2019.
“ICTSI has continued to deliver strong financial performance driven by organic volume growth, diligent cost management, and the continued ramp up of newer terminals,” said ICTSI Chairman and President Enrique K. Razon, Jr.
He noted that, “positive progress has been made across the business which in part has been enabled by the prudent investments we make in our brownfield terminals.”
“While we remain conscious of the current geopolitical trade tensions, we are well-positioned to deliver value for all our stakeholders,” Razon added.
Unaudited consolidated revenue from port operations amounted to US$1.1 billion in the first nine months of the year, an increase of 10 percent over the US$1.0 billion reported for the same period in 2018.
ICTSI handled consolidated volume of 7,590,090 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in the first nine months of 2019, six percent more than the 7,152,392 TEUs handled in the same period in 2018.