In its disclosure to the Philippine Stocks Exchange (PSE), ICTSI said it would acquire between 35 percent to 55 percent stake in Pakistan International Container Terminal Ltd. (PICT), a company that is also publicly listed in Karachi.
The said stake, which comprised of 60.03 million ordinary shares at Rs 0.10 each, is worth about P2.77 million at current exchange rates.
The PICT’s container terminal, located in the Pakistan’s main seaport and main financial center Karachi, has a maximum handling capacity of 750,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU).
For its fiscal year ending June 2011, the company handled a total of 669,806 TEUs, or an 11-percent growth compared with the previous year, ICTSI said in its disclosure.
The port commenced its terminal operation in 2002. It is the first port infrastructure in Pakistan that received a combined investment of about $150 million from the International Finance Corp. and also financed by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Fund for International Development.
If ICTSI’s offer is accepted, the facility will be the company’s second port operation in South Asia after its acquisition in April last year of Kattupalli Container Terminal in India.
For 2011 ICTSI reported a 33-percent jump in its net income to $130.5 million, up from the previous earnings of $98.3 million in 2010.
“The higher net income attributable to equity holders was mainly due to the upsurge in revenues, lower financing charges, lower effective tax rate and a one-time gain on sale of noncore assets,” it said in a statement.
Excluding the effect of its income from the sale of its 16.79 percent stake in Portek International Ltd. and a one-time equity tax charge imposed by Colombian tax authorities, ICTSI’s net income would have been at $124.4 million.
Revenues from port operations for the year increased by 26 percent to $664.8 million from the $527.1 million in 2010, the company said.
“The increase in revenues for 2011 was mainly due to the strong double digit volume growth across all geographic segments of the Group, higher storage revenues and ancillary services, favorable volume mix, and the inclusion of the new terminals in Portland, Oregon USA and Rijeka, Croatia.”
Revenue contribution from the ICTSI’s six key terminal operations in Manila, Brazil, Poland, Ecuador, Madagascar and China, which accounted for 85 percent of its consolidated revenues in 2011, increased by 19 percent from $476.5 million to $565.6 million.
For 2011 ICTSI handled a consolidated volume of 5.23 million TEUs, or 25 percent more than the 4.2 million TEUs that it handled in 2010.
The increase in volume was mainly due to the continued upturn in international trade, particularly in markets where ICTSI’s ports are located, new shipping line customers and the consolidation of the company’s new ports in Portland, Oregon, USA and Rijeka, Croatia.
Volume from the ICTSI’s six key terminal operations in Manila, Brazil, Poland, Ecuador, Madagascar and China, which accounted for 74 percent of company’s consolidated volume, increased 18 percent to 3.86 million TEUs from 3.26 million TEUs in 2010.