Cosco Pacific Beats Profit Estimate
Cosco Pacific Ltd.'s 2015 net profit rose 30% from a year earlier on the back of a write back of a provision. It recommended a final dividend of 22.9 Hong Kong cents a share.
The full-year net profit was US$381.6 million compared with US$292.8 million a year earlier. The improved earnings were lifted by a write back of a provision from the sale of its 21.8% stake in China International Marine Containers (Group) Co.
Full-year revenue fell 8.3% to US$798.2 million from US$870.1 million the previous year, as the euro and Chinese yuan depreciated against the U.S. dollar during the year.
Gross profit from the container leasing, management and sale businesses recorded a 15.7% decrease compared with last year. As competition in the container leasing market remained fierce, market lease rates fell.
This, combined with the decrease of 0.3 percentage points in the average utilisation rate of the Group to 95.0% (2014: 95.3%), caused the gross profit for container leasing to decline. As a result of the decrease in revenue from the sale of returned containers, gross profit from the sale of returned containers also decreased.
Cosco Pacific’s terminals handled 19.3 million 20-foot containers last year, 1.1 percent more than in 2014.