KUALA LUMPUR: Westports Holdings Bhd posted lower earnings of RM504.86mil in the financial year ended Dec 31, 2015 due to higher tax expenses despite higher pre-tax profit and revenue.
The port operator announced on Wednesday its earnings were lower by 1.4% from RM512.20mil in FY14. Its revenue increased 7.6% to RM1.68bil from RM1.56bil a year ago. It proposed dividend of 5.78 sen a share.
Westports’ profit before tax increased by 12% to RM650.14m as operational revenue grew by 5% to RM1.58bil.
It sustained higher tax expense of RM144.28mil compared with RM66.57mil a year ago. However, there was higher tax expense of RM145.28mil compared with RM66.58mil a year ago.
Westports posted record container volume as total container boxes handled increased by 8% to 9.05 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in 2015.
In the fourth quarter, its earnings fell 5.2% to RM132.54mil from RM139.80mil a year ago. Again, there were higher tax expenses of RM33.62mil compared with RM2.36mil a year ago.
Its revenue jumped 24% to RM477mil from RM384.48mil. Earnings per share were 3.89 sen compared with 4.10 sen.
Its CEO Ruben Emir Gnanalingam said the group had achieved another record-breaking year despite increasing economic headwinds as the year unfolded.
“As a regional transhipment hub for many shipping lines, it has been a momentous year and final quarter of 2015 when we surpassed all our previous records by achieving an all-time throughput of 9.05 million TEUs for the year and 2.34 million TEUs for the fourth quarter,” he added.
As for 2016, he said Westports started on the Container Terminal 8 (CT8) expansion in January 2015 and construction of the 300-metre wharf under Phase 1 has just been completed.
Equipped with state-of-art ship-to-shore cranes and energy efficient container terminal handling equipment, Phase 1 will commence operations by middle of 2016.
“The total investment in CT8, consisting of Phase 1 and Phase 2, is more than RM1 billion and when it is fully completed, the total container handling capacity would be increased to 13.5 million TEUs per year,” he added.
