Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運), Taiwan’s largest container cargo shipping company, has acquired the entire stake in a Panama terminal in a bid to strengthen its presence in the Americas and bolster its competitive advantages.
The company spent US$268 million to take a 100 percent stake in Colon Container Terminal SA (CCT), acquiring the holdings from its affiliates, Evergreen Marine president Eric Hsieh (謝惠全) told a news conference at the Taiwan Stock Exchange in Taipei on Friday.
CCT is one of the most important transportation hubs for Evergreen Marine and its subsidiary Evergreen Marine (Asia) Pte Ltd in terms of its routes between Asia and the Americas, Hsieh said.
Photo: Wang Yi-hung, Taipei Times
The acquisition is expected to improve Evergreen Group’s (長榮集團) services and shipments, he said.
The terminal operator started operating on Oct. 30, 1997, opening new opportunities for Panama as a hub for regional distribution and transshipment, CCT said on its Web site.
CCT was previously the site of a former US naval base, which the company transformed into a container handling facility with two berths. It subsequently developed two additional berths, expanding the terminal’s area to 74.3 hectares.
CCT is also developing a 30-hectare logistics park on its concession lands, which are integrated with terminal operations, it said.
Evergreen Marine said it has also purchased about 79 million shares of subsidiary Evergreen Steel Corp (長榮鋼鐵) from the open market in after-hours trading on Friday, spending NT$3.82 billion (US$118.69 million) to boost its stake in the company to about 19 percent, Hsieh said.
Evergreen Marine seeks to benefit from the steel subsidiary’s stable bottom line, he said, adding that Evergreen Steel plans to expand investments in green energy to boost profitability.
Evergreen Marine earned NT$100.70 billion in net profit for the third quarter, up 26 percent from a year earlier, with earnings per share of NT$37.25.
Net profit for the first nine months of the year was NT$304.35 billion, up 92 percent from a year earlier, while earnings per share were NT$68.88 and gross margin was 68.36 percent.
Due to a recent capital reduction to lower the number of outstanding shares in circulation, Evergreen Marine’s book value per share rose sharply to NT$254.87 in the third quarter from NT$85.3 in the second quarter, the company said.
The company cut its paid-in capital by 60 percent from NT$52.91 billion to about NT$21.16 billion, marking the first capital reduction in the company’s history.
Despite the large cut, Evergreen Marine has increased share value by a corresponding amount to maintain the company’s overall market capitalization.
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