CSAV president to step down

CSAV president to step down    Jaime Claro Valdes has resigned as president and director of Chilean container shipping company CSAV, according to a brief letter sent to the Chile’s securities commission and posted on the company’s Web site.
   Valdes took the company helm in November 2008 when his brother Ricardo Claro Valdes died of a heart attack.
   His resignation came as CSAV released its fourth quarter financial results, showing a net profit of $181.5 million compared to a loss of $653.4 million in the same 2009 period.
   “2010 was better than it was originally forecast, characterized by sharp fluctuations and ending with an uncertain outlook,” the company said.
   CSAV said it had record revenue of $5.45 billion in 2010, 80 percent more than in 2009.
   The company said volume in 2010 increased 62 percent over 2009, and 32 percent over the number of containers transported in 2008. The average rates in 2010 were 23 percent higher than in 2009, but 8 percent lower than in 2008.
   In a quarterly analysis, CSAV said there was growth in volume and rates in the first nine months of 2010. But during the fourth quarter “demand increase came to a standstill and rates declined significantly.”
   The company said it was difficult to determine why this change had happened “because there a number of factors acting together.
   “The container trade requires significant investment in assets, which are long-term decisions, not possible to be modified in the short term. On the demand side, historically, the volume transported in container follows a multiplier pattern of the world's economic performance, increasing its volatility. Global trade has grown in recent decades at larger rates than GDP, and container trade has experienced an even larger growth. The nature of this business can explain the fluctuations registered, but the recent ones have exceeded normal variations explained solely by normal business drivers.”