Global Ports Investments PLC today publishes its interim condensed consolidated financial information (unaudited) for the six-month period ended 30 June 2022.
Certain financial information is derived from the management accounts. Unless otherwise stated, all comparisons refer to y/y changes.
Revenue increased by 18.2% to USD 271.6 million.
Gross profit Adjusted for Impairment increased by 28.8% to USD 129.9 million.
Adjusted EBITDA grew by 28.0% to USD 145.6 million, delivering Adjusted EBITDA Margin increase of 410 basis points to 53.6%.
Loss for the period of USD 400.7 million due to impairment of USD 521.1 million.
Free Cash Flow generation growth of 145.9% to USD 151.3 million.
Deleveraging successfully continued with Net Debt down by USD 67.4 million and Net Debt to LTM Adjusted EBITDA reduced to 1.5x (-0.5x compared to 31 December 2021).
Consolidated Marine Container Throughput, reflecting market trends, down 22.6% y-o-y to 611 thousand TEUs.
Consolidated Marine Bulk Throughput of 1.2 million tonnes (-53.5% y-o-y) on the back of the strategic decision to cease coal handling at VSC in 2021 to drive more profitable container volume growth.
Management comment and outlook: After a strong start of the year, an increase of geopolitical tensions resulted in significant deterioration of the Russian container market conditions, including: sanctions introduced by other countries; increased volatility of financial markets and Russian Rouble; a significantly increased level of economic uncertainty; suspension of operations by container shipping lines and certain beneficial cargo owners; disruption of container supply chains and de-containerisation of export.
As a result, the container business of the Group in the North-West of Russia significantly reduced, while container market in the Far East of Russia remained stronger as less dependent on European container hubs and more consumer and humanitarian goods oriented.
Availability of well invested multipurpose terminals in two basins allowed the Group to partially mitigate negative markets trends. That became possible due to multiple factors: the growth of non-container business in the North-West as well as due to solid unit pricing driven by growing share of higher priced Far Eastern operations, one-off significant increase of container storage time, client and cargo mix change. These trends combined with strong cost control and CAPEX revision allowed 28.0% growth of Adjusted EBITDA to USD 145.6 million, Free Cash Flow growth of 145.9% to USD 151.3 million and further deleveraging with Net Debt to LTM Adjusted EBITDA reduction to 1.5x, the lowest level since 2012.
Global Ports Investments PLC is the leading operator of container terminals in the Russian market by capacity and container throughput. Global Ports’ terminals are located in the Baltic and Far East Basins, key regions for foreign Russian trade and transit cargo flows. Global Ports operates five container terminals in Russia (Petrolesport, First Container Terminal, Ust-Luga Container Terminal and Moby Dik in the Russian Baltics, and Vostochnaya Stevedoring Company in the Russian Far East) and two container terminals in Finland (Multi-Link Terminals in Helsinki and Kotka). Global Ports also owns inland container terminal Yanino Logistics Park located in the vicinity of St. Petersburg.
Global Ports H1’22 revenue totaled $271.6 million, adjusted EBITDA – $145.6 million. Consolidated turnover of the Group’s sea terminals - 611 thousand TEU.
Global Ports’ major shareholders are Delo Group, the largest intermodal container and port operator in Russia (30.75%), and APM Terminals B.V. (30.75%), whose core expertise is the design, construction, management and operation of ports, terminals and inland services. APM Terminals operate a terminal network of 75 terminals globally. 20.5% of Global Ports shares are traded in the form of global depositary receipts listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange.