DP World’s London listing on track as profits soar

The Dubai-based container terminal operator said 2010 full-year net profit reached $451 million on $3.19 billion turnover, a sharp recovery from the $370 million profit on $2.93 billion revenue for 2009. Shipping volumes rose 14 per cent. DP World shares edged up to a five-week high on Wednesday, climbing 0.3 per cent to reach its highest level since February 16.

Announcing the 2010 robust results, Chief Executive Mohammed Sharaf said container shipping staged a strong comeback in 2010 after suffering its worst downturn in volumes in 2009.

He said profits have yet to return to the $621 million level achieved in 2008 partly because of a fall in the level of non-container traffic handled at Jebel Ali. However, “we are on track for the London listing,” Sharaf told reporters. “We have submitted the 2010 results to the exchange. We are hoping to do the listing as soon as possible.”

Informed sources said DP World planned to list in the second quarter of 2011 DP World Chairman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem said almost all container terminals around the world are back at or ahead of volumes last seen in 2008, a peak year for the global container terminal industry. “The group has continued to invest in its portfolio during the last two years of global crisis and is seeing the benefit of this investment in these results.”

Sharaf said the company was on course for further growth in 2011. “It is particularly pleasing to see the UAE region continuing the strong performance seen at the end of 2010 with volume and revenue growth in the first two months of 2011 well ahead of last year.

“In the first two months of 2011 we have seen 12 per cent volume growth across our consolidated portfolio with further margin improvement from the full year 2010,” he said. “Despite continuing economic fragility and political turbulence in some parts of the world, given the geographic spread of our portfolio, we remain confident that we will make further progress in 2011,” Sharaf said.

He said political unrest in the Middle East and the earthquake in Japan had no adverse impact on the company so far. Governments in the region are going to be more transparent and will spend more on infrastructure development to improve the livelihood of the people. This is what people are asking for.

“Our container operations have continued to generate excellent performance, with container revenues ahead of levels last seen in 2008. Despite the slower growth from non-container revenues, cost controls and improved terminal efficiencies have driven a 16 per cent growth in EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) to $1.24 billion and EBITDA margins back above 40 per cent,” he said.

issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com