DP World’s Earns USD 1.2 Bn in 2017

Dubai-based port developer DP World reported 15.1 growth in earnings in 2017, with profit attributable to owners of the company reaching USD 1.2 billion.

Adjusted EBITDA grew 9.1 pct year-on-year and achieved an EBITDA margin for the full year of 52.4 pct, DP World said.

The port operator’s revenue marked 13.2 pct increase year-on-year standing at USD 4.71 billion, driven by strong volume growth across the board.

“Encouragingly, our volumes have continued to grow ahead of the market with gross volumes growing 10.1 pct year-on-year, ahead of Drewry Maritime’s full-year market estimate of 6 pct. Our portfolio has seen strong performance across all three regions benefitting from the improved trading environment and market share gains,” DP World Group Chairman and CEO, Ahmed Bin Sulayem, said.

In 2017, the company invested USD 1.09 billion in the development of its portfolio, while for this year the planned capital expenditure stands at USD 1.4 billion.

The primary candidates for investments are the group’s projects in UAE, Posorja, Ecuador; Berbera, Somaliland; Pusan, South Korea; Maputo, Mozambique and Sokhna, Egypt.

The gross global capacity for the year was at 88 million TEU, which is expected to grow to over 100 million TEU of gross capacity by 2020, subject to market demand.

Consolidated capacity was at 50 million TEU up from 42 million TEU in 2016 including the consolidation of Pusan (South Korea).

“In recent years, we have leveraged on our in-house expertise to extend our core business into port-related, maritime, transportation and logistics sectors with the objective of diversifying our revenue base and connecting directly with the owners of cargo and aggregators of demand to remove inefficiencies in trade, improve the quality of our earnings and drive returns. Going forward, we expect this trend to continue as we seek opportunities in complementary sectors in the global supply chain and also make use of new technology and data solutions,”  Bin Sulayem said.

In terms of the outlook for this year, DP World’s CEO said the year started on an encouraging note, with current trading in line with expectations.

“As we look ahead into 2018, geopolitical headwinds in some regions pose a challenge but we expect to continue to grow ahead of the market and see increased contributions from our recent investments,” he concluded.