Port of Tauranga half year results:
Revenue - $73m, up 2pc
Profit - $22.5m, up 10pc
Dividend - 9 cents per share
KEY POINTS:
A 6 per cent rise in trade helped Port of Tauranga lift half-year net profit 10 per cent to $22.5 million.
The company said today total trade for the six months to the end of December was up 6 per cent, compared to a year earlier, to 6.94m tonnes.
Container volumes were also up 6 per cent to 289,600 twenty foot equivalent units (TEUs).
Among items to show increases were log exports up 26 per cent, sawn timber exports up 9 per cent, wood pulp exports up 18 per cent, frozen meat exports up 13 per cent, bulk liquid imports up 25 per cent, coal imports up 48 per cent and palm kernel imports up 87 per cent on the previous year.
A fully imputed interim dividend of 9 cents per share had been maintained.
Chairman John Parker said 2009 would be challenging.
"We don't really know the extent of the challenges but will ensure we are well prepared for them," he said.
"It remains very difficult to accurately forecast the remaining half of this financial year, with our customers not having much visibility on demand outlook, but at this stage we expect to post a full year result similar to last year's earnings."
Costs had been reduced but the port was not shying away from investing for future growth, Parker said.
The company had just bolstered its strategic landholdings by a further 4.4ha, through an agreement with Carter Holt Harvey.
That brought total landholdings to 185ha, of which 13.7ha were bought during the past 12 months.
Resource consent applications would be lodged to dredge harbour channels and sitting basins to 14.5 metres draught in the next few months, while a new ship to shore gantry crane was on schedule and would be commissioned in July, Parker said.
Chief executive Mark Cairns described the company as New Zealand's port for the future.
He said the company's increasingly diverse trade mix was relatively defensive, and it was pleasing to see a strong increase in cart-in of forestry cargo during the past month.
Shares in the port, 55 per cent-owned by the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, closed yesterday at $5.15, the lowest level in more than two years as the New Zealand sharemarket fell to a five-year low.
- NZPA
