ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING STATEMENT - WELL POSITIONED TO DELIVER GROWTH
At today’s Annual General Meeting, Bo Lerenius, Group Chief Executive of Associated British Ports Holdings PLC, said:
“I am pleased to report that we have made a satisfactory start to 2005. Since the announcement of our 2004 annual results in February, we have added new revenue-related investments, under long-term agreements, which total over £17m to our core ports and transport business. These include a £15m investment with SSE Energy Supply, in additional coal-handing equipment for Humber International Terminal, Phase 2, and a £1.7m investment in an agribulk facility.Both of these are at the Port of Immingham.
Our plans to invest more than £400m in our UK ports over the next 10 years remain on track. At the Port of Immingham, construction of the £27.5m roll-on/roll-off facility, under a 25-year agreement with DFDS Tor Line, and the £44.5m coal import facility, which is supported by contracts with BHP Billiton, Drax Power, EDF Energy and International Power, is proceeding well. Both projects are on schedule, on budget and should become operational next year.
Following the government’s “minded to approve” notification earlier this year, we await a final decision on our planned £30m-£35m development of a shortsea riverside containerterminal at the Port of Hull; we expect to receive this decision after the UK’s general election.Our evaluation of the possibility of another major riverside terminal at the Port of Hull continues.
We also remain on track to achieve our target of £250m of non-core property and land sales. We have sold £8.3m since the beginning of this year, bringing the total amount sold since 1 January 2000 to £212.8m.
Supported by the group’s strong cash flow, we have completed £115.9m of the £205m share repurchase programme. We have repurchased 25.6m shares at an average price per share of 453 pence, before costs.
The group continues to benefit from the competitive advantage of the many long-term contracts with quality customers it has secured over recent years. This leads the board to believe that this year the group is once again well positioned to deliver growth in the core UK ports business.
Also, with the addition of the new coal-handling equipment at Immingham, the first two of the group’s major growth projects on the Humber will now represent a total investment of £87m and we expect these two developments to become operational and to start contributing to operating profit and the group’s growth during 2006.
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