Global Ports Investments PLC has released its full year results for the financial year ended December 31 2015. Against the backdrop of a macroeconomic slowdown and a sharp devaluation of the Russian rouble negatively impacting imports, container throughput declined 31% year on year to 1,834 thousand TEU in 2015.
Revenue was 27.9% lower than in 2014 at US$ 405.7 million, the decline was mainly driven by lower container throughput.
However, the company has seen an increase in its EBITDA margin by 488 basis points to 71.7% and produced solid free cash flow of US$236 million.
This has been the result of greater focus on operation cash costs and efficiency, emphasis on maintaining pricing discipline as well as a pragmatic review of CAPEX plans.
The group has continued to prioritise further deleveraging its balance sheet and decreased its net Debt by US$160million.
Vladislav Baumgertner, CEO of Global Ports Management said “The macro-economic backdrop in Russia continues to be challenging and the container market has inevitably felt the effects of this.
In 2015 we tried to mitigate as much as possible the macro impact on our company's performance while still preserving our undoubted long-term potential.
“Our focus on efficiency combined with the successful promotion of our premium terminal services with our clients has allowed us to increase our Adjusted EBITDA margin to a record level of 72% and generate healthy free cash flow of US$ 236 million.
“We continued our process of deleveraging that has already seen us reimburse more than US$ 290 million in debt since the NCC Acquisition.
“We also entered the public debt markets last year, an important step that has increased our financial flexibility. We fully expect 2016 to be another challenging year.
“So far we have seen no sign of a market recovery and at the same time competition in our industry is intensifying.
“Nevertheless as a team we feel well prepared to face even this toughest of environments since our track is one of repeated success in navigating our way through difficult cycles .”