APM Terminals has reported a 58.8% increase in third quarter profit to $345m from $203m in Q3 2013, spurred by the sale of two terminals.
The result comes despite revenues remaining flat at $1.1bn, and brings APM Terminal’s nine month profit to $998m, up from $595m for the first three quarters of 2013.
The volume of containers handled grew 4.4% to 9.7m teu, bringing the nine month total to 28.9m teu, up from 27m teu at the same point last year
Divestment gains of $219m after tax were recorded in the quarter as the company offloaded its 50% stake in France’s Terminal Port Océane and 100% stake in APM Terminals Virginia in the US.
The one-off gains were dampened by $74m of impairments, $52m of which related to joint ventures.
Stripping out the one-off gains, the underlying result for the quarter was $211m, up from $195m in the same period last year.
Tax took a much larger bite from the company’s earnings as local tax incentives expired; the effective tax rate rose from 9.5% in Q3 2013 to 32.4%, bringing tax up from $22m to $165m for the third quarter 2014.
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