Razon-led ICTSI bags Honduras port contract

MANILA, Philippines – Homegrown port giant International Container Terminal Services Inc. (ICTSI), led by the Philippines’ 3rd richest man Enrique Razon, has signed a 30-year contract to operate and maintain a container and cargo terminal of Puerto Cortes in Honduras.

In a disclosure to the stock exchange on Friday, March 22, ICTSI said its subsidiary Operadora de Puerto Cortes SA de CV signed the contract for the design, finance, construction, preservation, operations and exploitation of the container and general cargo terminal located on a 62.2-hectare property in Puerto Cortes.

Last February 1, the technical committee of the bid process composed of the members of the Commission for the Public-Private Alliance (Coalianza), an entity of the federal government of Honduras, and Ficohsa Bank awarded the contract to ICTSI during a public hearing held in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

Once completed, the container and general cargo terminal would have 1.100 meters of quay for containers and 400 meters for general cargo, 14 meters of draft, a total of 12 ship-to-shore (STS) cranes, and a total volume capacity of 1.8 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).

Capital expenditures

ICTSI has allocated $550 million for its capital expenditures this 2013 to bankroll its operations abroad particularly in Argentina and Mexico and expand its presence in the Philippines.

The publicly-held port operator also plans to ramp-up of construction activities in Colombia and in Davao, southern Philippines. ICTSI Treasury BV earlier raised $400 million to

2012 performance

ICTSI recorded a 10% growth in net income to $144 million in 2012 from $131 million a year ago as consolidated volume handled climbed 7.5% to 5.628 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) from 5.233 million TEUs.

Volume growth was traced to the increase in international and domestic trade, new shipping line customers and routes, continuous containerization of break bulk cargoes. It also cited the full period contribution of the company’s new ports in Portland, Oregon, USA and Rijeka, Croatia, and the consolidation of the volume generated by the ICTSI’s new terminal operations in Jakarta, Indonesia and Karachi, Pakistan.

Revenues grew 10% to $729.3 million from $664.8 million a year ago. Excluding the volume from the 4 recent port acquisitions, organic volume growth was at 4%.

Its 6 key terminal operations — Manila, Brazil, Poland, Ecuador, Madagascar and China — increased 6% to 4.109 million TEUs from 3.867 million. These accounted for 73 percent of the company’s consolidated volume in 2012.

ICTSI operates 27 marine terminals and port projects in 19 countries worldwide. – Rappler.com