HPH Trust posts higher revenue, earnings in Q3

Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH) Trust on Friday posted a net profit of HK$525.9 million for its third quarter ended September 30, 2015, up 7.2 per cent from HK$490.7 million.

Revenue and other income rose 2.3 per cent to HK$3.5 billion.

Earnings per unit attributable to unitholders was 6.04 HK cents, compared to 5.63 HK cents a year ago.

"HPH Trust continues to outperform the market and achieved stable third quarter results as management focused primarily on tariffs and costs improvements," it said.

"Despite weak market outlook, overall year-to-date September 2015 results of HPH Trust has improved from its first half.

"Management remains cautious on the volume outlook for the remainder of the year given the depressed European market and will continue to focus on improvements to tariffs and costs."

It added that so far this year, throughput of the trust's deep-water ports was in line with last year.

Outbound cargoes to the US showed an upward trend but at a slower growth rate. The decline in outbound cargoes to EU continued but showed some improvements in the third quarter of 2015.

HPH Trust is a container port business trust which owns stakes in deep-water container port assets located in Kwai Tsing, Hong Kong and Shenzhen, China.