P&O NEDLLOYD REPORTS SHARP FALL IN RESULTS

P&O NEDLLOYD REPORTS SHARP FALL IN RESULTS    P&O Nedlloyd Container Line reported a 19-percent drop in its fourth-quarter pre-tax profit, to $17 million and a widening of its annual deficit, to $51 million last year, from $2 million in 1998.
   For the fourth quarter, operating profit decreased by 44 percent, to $31 million, from $55 million in the year-earlier period. Revenue went up by 12 percent, to $986 million, as volume carried also rose by 12 percent, to 739,100 TEUs.
   For the year, operating profit plunged from $81 million in 1998 to $7 million last year, a fall of 91 percent. Revenue for the year was $3.7 billion, up 7 percent on the 1998 revenue of $3.4 billion. P&O Nedlloyd carried 2.8 million TEUs in 1999, an increase of 13 percent, but average revenue per TEU was down by 5 percent, to $1,302.
   P&O Nedlloyd said that the higher cost of fuel had an adverse effect of $35 million on its results in the fourth quarter.
   Despite the fuel price increase, its profit before tax was higher in the fourth quarter than in the third quarter, it said.
   The average revenue per TEU in the fourth quarter was $1,334, slightly down on the $1,339 figure for the fourth quarter of 1998. However, it was 1 percent higher than the $1,317 revenue per TEU of the third quarter of 1999, P&O Nedlloyd said. “This is the second successive quarter of rate improvement,” the Anglo-Dutch carrier said.
   P&O Nedlloyd said that the industry outlook “is more positive than for some time,” but the first quarter of the current year will be seasonally weak, as usual.