Working Smarter, More Efficiently Pays Dividends For SouthPortNZ

South Port New Zealand has responded well to the strong cargo growth it has been fortunate to achieve over the last five years, Chairman, Mr Rex Chapman told shareholders attending the Company’s Annual Meeting at Bluff.

Photo: whatsoninvers.nz

“This year we serviced record log volumes and a substantial increase in exported wood chips, cargoes that are very much influenced by overseas prices.

Conversely, as we predicted this time last year, inbound stock food volumes decreased by approximately 25% directly as a result of the low dairy pay-out. This demonstrates how external factors can affect cargo flows.”

However, over the last 10 years cargo has increased 50% from 2 million tonnes to 3 million tonnes, which Mr Chapman said was partly explained by positive regional economic growth. “South Port has responded well to that growth by matching the volume lift with the appropriate resources to service it.”

For the second consecutive year, South Port achieved record after tax profit and cargo volume (3.05 million tonnes). FY16’s net profit of $8.71 million is a 13% increase on FY15’s profit of $7.74 million.

“The proportion of profit increase (13%) is both greater than the increase in cargo volume (7%) and greater than the increase in total revenue (also 7%),” said Mr Chapman.

“This demonstrates that costs are being contained, overall productivity has increased, and the Company is making better use of its fixed infrastructure. This represents overall business improvement”.

“Working smarter and more efficiently is important for a business such as ours. We cannot always rely on revenue and cargo growth because to some extent these two factors are not within our direct control and are heavily influenced by commodity cycles and regional growth.