Team Northport > March Bulletin 2

Northport reports impressive financial performance

Northport’s efforts to enhance competitiveness and inject greater efficiencies through improved risk management and process flows has contributed successfully to higher yields in the earnings reported by the NCB Holdings Bhd for the financial year ended 31 December 2007.

The Group, consisting of the port operating subsidiary, Northport (Malaysia) Bhd and its haulage arm, Kontena Nasional Sdn Bhd, recorded a turnover of RM885.5 million, reflecting a growth of 6.2 per cent in 2007 compared with the previous year’s figure of RM834.0 million.

Pre-tax profit for the Group was RM204.1 million, an impressive improvement of 23.5% in comparison with last year’s figure of RM165.3 million.

“The positive trend was in part due to the effective customer relations and development initiatives and programmes of cost containment in the port subsidiary and the continuous effort to create grater in-roads in total logistics segments of business by the haulage subsidiary,” said the Chairman of NCB Holdings Bhd, Tan Sri Dato’ Seri (Dr) Ahmad Sarji.

Profit before tax of Northport (Malaysia) Bhd went up by 18.9 per cent notwithstanding the modest growth in the volume of container throughput handled, said Tan Sri Ahmad Sarji.

Northport continued to maintain a strong market reach, registering a throughput of 2.8 million TEU’s, or an increase of 5.4 per cent compared with 2.66 million TEU’s recorded in year 2006.

The container mix at Northport was 50% for both import and export containers. In volume terms, the total for inbound containers improved by 5.8 per cent from 1.35 million TEU’s in year 2006 to 1.43 million TEU’s in year 2007. Outbound containers also registered a rise, by 5.1per cent, from 1.31 million TEU’s in 2006 to 1.38 TEU’s in 2007.

Of the 3.02 milion TEU’s of laden container traffic related to indigenous trade passing through Port Klang, 1.76 million TEU’s or 58.4 per cent were serviced at facilities operated by Northport. This makes Northport the leading gateway for national trade.

Transhipment volume handled during the year was 1.04 million TEU’s, higher by 84,116 TEU’s or 8.8 per cent compared with year 2006 volume of 958,245 TEU’s. Transhipment volume made up 37.1 per cent of the total volume handled by Northport in 2007, indicating an increase of 1.1 per cent compared with the previous year’s level of 36.0 per cent.

The total volume handled through Port Klang for the year 2007 was 7.14 million TEU’s, reflecting a growth of 12.8 per cent compared with 6.33 million TEU’s handled in year 2006.

Apart from the strong performance in container handling, Northport posted impressive growth in the handling of non-containerised cargoes. This is attributed to the dramatic growth in the handling of breakbulk cargoes as well as a strong performance in the ro/ro trade. The volume of breakbulk cargoes rose by an impressive 32 per cent totalling 5.9 million fwt while the automotive trade recorded 37 per cent totalling 108, 955 units.

Tan Sri Ahmad Sarji said Kontena Nasional Berhad, the haulage subsidiary, continued to face stiff competition but with the support of its key customers, the total volume of container movements serviced by its various branches during the year remained high.

The subsidiary at the same time has been chalking up new success in the non-haulage areas, namely warehousing, inventory management and distribution, he added.

Tan Sri Ahmad Sarji said Kontena Nasional has made considerable in-roads in the targeted areas when it undertook a major shift of focus and expand the non-haulage activities of the Company. Its move into warehousing and distribution activities has met with encouraging success and the impact will be felt during financial year 2008, he said, adding Kontena Nasional now has firm plans for the development of new warehouse facilities to take it beyond its initial entry into the new service areas of warehousing, inventory management and distribution.