News

Global Ports Investments PLC (“Global Ports” or the “Company” and, together with its subsidiaries and joint ventures, the “Group”) (LSE ticker: GLPR) today announces its operational results for Q4 and FY 2021.

Highlights

• Market growth continued in Q4 2021 (+4.4% y-o-y) resulting in the Russian marine container market achieving record volumes in 2021 of 5.4 million TEU (+7.1% y-o-y), driving growth in both containerised import (4Q 2021: + 4.9% y-o-y, FY21: +11.1% y-o-y) and containerised export (4Q 2021: — 1.1% y-o-y, FY21: +4.2% y-o-y)
• As a result of the sharp rise in freight rates in the global container shipping market and a deficit of empty containers globally, during Q4 2021 market players continued to prefer faster container import and export supply chains with the shortest sea leg. As a result, Q4 and FY 2021 market growth was concentrated in the Far Eastern basin (Q4 2021: +13.4% y-o-y, FY21: +14.0% y-o-y) and the Southern basin (Q4 2021: +0.4% y-o-y, FY21: +6.4% y-o-y) while combined throughput of terminals located in Saint Petersburg and the surrounding area declined by 4.6% y-o-y in Q4 2021 and 3.7% y-o-y in FY 2021.
• The Group successfully improved market share position in FY 2021 in all its basins of presence with throughput at VSC improving by 14.8% y-o-y FY 2021 and throughput of its terminals in the Baltic Basin declining by 2.3% y-o-y. In total, Consolidated Marine Container Throughput increased by 2.8% y-o-y in 2021 to 1.576 thousand TEUs.
• In Q4 2021, VSC operated in an environment of exceptionally high and rapidly changing demand dynamics whilst undergoing a strategic transition back to a 100% container dedicated facility using advanced terminal operating software, which resulted in a temporary decline in volumes in the middle of the reporting quarter. This important transition period ended in November and both VSC and our customers have seen a clear increase in the transparency and manageability of clearance processes and the efficiency of cargo handling. As a result, growth rate of container throughput at VSC slowed down to 2.3% in Q4 2021 while throughput of Group’s terminals in the Baltic Basin in the same period performed better than the relevant market declining by 2.4%. In Q4 2021, Consolidated Marine Container Throughput decreased marginally by 0.9% y-o-y to 385 thousand TEUs.
• As previously announced, VSC ceased coal handling in September 2021 enabling the terminal to concentrate on the Group’s core strategic operations of driving container volumes and decreasing its environmental impact. As a result, the Group’s Consolidated Marine Bulk Throughput decreased by 44.8% y-o-y to 0.77 million tonnes in Q4 2021 and by 14.6% y-o-y to 4.33 million tonnes in 2021.
• Heavy Ro-ro handling increased by 6.7% y-o-y to 6.4 thousand units in 4Q 2021 and by 24.4% to 25.2 thousand units in 2021. Car handling declined by 25.1% in 4Q 2021 on the back of declining local demand but increased overall in FY 2021 by 27.8% to 104.9 thousand units.

Albert Likholet, CEO of Global Ports Management, commented:

“2021 was a very strong year for infrastructure and logistics and growth across all segments enabled the Russian container market to set a new record in volumes. In this year Global Ports not only successfully protected and enhanced our leadership positions in both of the Group’s basins of presence but also successfully set a solid foundation to maintain this strong standpoint going forward.”

Rounding adjustments have been made in calculating some of operational information included in this release. As a result, numerical figures and percentages shown as totals not be exact arithmetic aggregations and other calculations of the figures that precede them.