Hot stock: HPH Trust slips 2% on heavy trading following weaker H1 results

SHARES of Hutchison Port Holdings Trust (HPH Trust) were trading in hefty volumes on Wednesday (Jul 27), as price slipped roughly 2.1 per cent or US$0.005 to US$0.235 as at 9.19 am. Some 2.1 million shares changed hands at the time.

The last time the mainboard-listed counter closed near this level was in June and no married deals were recorded according to ShareInvestor data.

This comes after the trust posted a decline in its H1 profits due to lower volumes of export/import cargoes handled in Hong Kong.

In a bourse filing on Tuesday, HPH Trust reported a 6.8 per cent dip in profit attributable to unitholders of the trust to HK$716.3 million (S$126.5 million) in H1 2022 ended Jun 30, from HK$768.3 million a year ago.

The earnings per unit attributable to unitholders also fell 6.8 per cent from HK$0.0882 to HK$0.0822 in the first half of this year.

Business performance for the trust — which has controlling interests in container port assets Kwai Tsing, Hong Kong and Yantian Port, Shenzhen, China — was also affected by significant disruptions in global marine shipping schedules as Shanghai, one of the largest ports in the world, went through a lockdown from April.