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Cape Town - Logistics giant Transnet keeps steaming ahead despite a prevailing tough economic environment.
The state owned company announced its latest interim results in Johannesburg on Thursday and said that it has managed to increase revenue by 14.3% in the six months to September 30 2013 to R28.5bn.
This has driven its profit higher by 71.2% to R2.9bn for the period.
Transnet CEO Brian Molefe says in a statement the numbers were achieved despite volatile and uncertain economic conditions worldwide.
“The growth in income for the period under review was driven by a 26% jump in containers and automotive on rail and by buoyant mineral and chrome volumes. The latter increased by 12%.
"The performance in containers and automotive on rail far exceeds economic growth, confirming that we are winning both market share and the battle to shift rail-friendly cargo off our roads.”
Investing in capex has come down slightly in comparison to the same period in 2012 when Transnet announced it had spent R12.8bn on capex for the period.
On Thursday, Transnet said it had invested R11.2bn on rejuvenating and expanding infrastructure this year. That’s a decline of R1.6bn, but in the prior year the figure includes Transnet’s purchase of the old Durban International Airport from Acsa.
Coal volumes were marginally up at 41.9 million tons.
“We are beginning to see the benefits of the extra maintenance work on our operations, which has improved efficiencies. Thanks to management interventions and innovations like Project Shongololo on the coal line, our weekly tempos have improved from an average of 1.4 mt to 1.8 mt in the second quarter of the financial year,” says Molefe.
Iron ore and manganese volumes were flat at 31.4 mt during the period. At the ports, containers increased by an impressive 9.4% in the period under review and petroleum volumes on the pipelines unit declined by 1.5% as a result of lower economic activity and therefore less demand for fuel in Gauteng.
Molefe says Transnet’s key measure of profitability - earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) jumped by 19.3% to R12bn from R10.1bn during the same period in the previous year.
“We are improving profitability despite a 10.9% increase in our overall operating costs which were driven by fuel, electricity and personnel costs. These were mitigated by our uncompromising stance on cost management, which yielded a R1.4bn saving.”
The company announced earlier this month that thousands of Transnet pensioners, who are members of the company’s pensioner-only funds, would receive an extra R177m in ad hoc bonuses this November.
The Transnet Board has approved the payments to members of the Transnet Second Defined Benefit Fund (TSDBF) and the Transnet sub-fund of the Transport Pension Fund (TTPF).
Each member or beneficiary will receive a bonus payment of 8.33% of their annual pension – an equivalent of a 13th cheque – from their respective fund.
Transnet made an ex gratia payment of R70m in September this year targeting those pensioners with low pensions despite having long service. This takes the total ex gratia payments by Transnet to its most disadvantaged pensioners to R448m since 2007.
- Fin24
*Follow James-Brent Styan on Twitter at @jamesstyan.
The state owned company announced its latest interim results in Johannesburg on Thursday and said that it has managed to increase revenue by 14.3% in the six months to September 30 2013 to R28.5bn.
This has driven its profit higher by 71.2% to R2.9bn for the period.
Transnet CEO Brian Molefe says in a statement the numbers were achieved despite volatile and uncertain economic conditions worldwide.
“The growth in income for the period under review was driven by a 26% jump in containers and automotive on rail and by buoyant mineral and chrome volumes. The latter increased by 12%.
"The performance in containers and automotive on rail far exceeds economic growth, confirming that we are winning both market share and the battle to shift rail-friendly cargo off our roads.”
Investing in capex has come down slightly in comparison to the same period in 2012 when Transnet announced it had spent R12.8bn on capex for the period.
On Thursday, Transnet said it had invested R11.2bn on rejuvenating and expanding infrastructure this year. That’s a decline of R1.6bn, but in the prior year the figure includes Transnet’s purchase of the old Durban International Airport from Acsa.
Coal volumes were marginally up at 41.9 million tons.
“We are beginning to see the benefits of the extra maintenance work on our operations, which has improved efficiencies. Thanks to management interventions and innovations like Project Shongololo on the coal line, our weekly tempos have improved from an average of 1.4 mt to 1.8 mt in the second quarter of the financial year,” says Molefe.
Iron ore and manganese volumes were flat at 31.4 mt during the period. At the ports, containers increased by an impressive 9.4% in the period under review and petroleum volumes on the pipelines unit declined by 1.5% as a result of lower economic activity and therefore less demand for fuel in Gauteng.
Molefe says Transnet’s key measure of profitability - earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) jumped by 19.3% to R12bn from R10.1bn during the same period in the previous year.
“We are improving profitability despite a 10.9% increase in our overall operating costs which were driven by fuel, electricity and personnel costs. These were mitigated by our uncompromising stance on cost management, which yielded a R1.4bn saving.”
The company announced earlier this month that thousands of Transnet pensioners, who are members of the company’s pensioner-only funds, would receive an extra R177m in ad hoc bonuses this November.
The Transnet Board has approved the payments to members of the Transnet Second Defined Benefit Fund (TSDBF) and the Transnet sub-fund of the Transport Pension Fund (TTPF).
Each member or beneficiary will receive a bonus payment of 8.33% of their annual pension – an equivalent of a 13th cheque – from their respective fund.
Transnet made an ex gratia payment of R70m in September this year targeting those pensioners with low pensions despite having long service. This takes the total ex gratia payments by Transnet to its most disadvantaged pensioners to R448m since 2007.
- Fin24
*Follow James-Brent Styan on Twitter at @jamesstyan.
