COSCO Pacific profit drops

COSCO Pacific profit drops    Container terminal operator and container leasing company COSCO Pacific said profit attributable to equity holders was $172.5 million in 2009, 37.2 percent less than the prior year.
   Reporting its results in U.S. dollars, the Hong Kong-based company said revenue rose 3.4 percent in the same period to $349 million.
   COSCO Pacific said it is now the fifth-largest container terminal operator and the second-largest container leasing company in the world.
   It said container throughput dropped 5.1 percent to 43.5 million TEUs and its container leasing fleet size shrunk 2.4 percent to nearly 1.6 million TEUs.
   The company said it disposed of COSCO Logistics for about $293 million in cash “further streamlining core businesses by focusing resources on terminals.”
   On the outlook for 2010, the company said it “it is generally believed that the worst of the contraction is over and that imports and exports trade may return to sustainable growth. COSCO Pacific believes that its two core businesses of container terminals and container leasing, are well positioned to take advantage of these positive trends.
   “On the container terminal side, with a strong presence in China, COSCO Pacific has already achieved a stronger than expected 23 percent year-on-year growth in container throughput volume in the first two months of 2010,” it added.
   It cautioned that unemployment and weak consumer confidence around the world are “likely to restrain the growth of international trade, including that with China. Notwithstanding this, COSCO Pacific believes further improvement of its terminal division performance for the full year in 2010 is achievable as long as the recent improvement in global containerized trade volumes is sustained.”