South Port New Zealand Limited Analysis

Overview

South Port is the southernmost commercial port in New Zealand, located at Bluff and operating on a year-round, 24 hour basis. It is situated in the highly productive province of Southland which is responsible for producing a sizeable proportion of New Zealand's total exports by value.

The company was established in October 1988 when it acquired $23m of assets from the Southland Harbour Board. Stock exchange listing was achieved in July 1994 after 6.48m shares owned by the Southland Regional Council were offered to the public at $1.10 each. A share buy-back was undertaken in 2000 and the Southland Regional Council now owns 66.48% of the shares in the company.

South Port is governed by a board of six independent directors. It is the only Southland-based company listed on NZX. It is also one of the major employers in the region, employing over 80 full time equivalent staff.

From its base on the 40 hectare (100 acre) man-made Island Harbour, South Port is proud to provide a full range of marine services, cargo and container shipping, and on-site warehousing for domestic and international customers. The port is ideally situated to service Southland's significant export and import industries including aluminium, timber, fisheries, dairy, meat, wood chips, stock food, cement, alumina, fertiliser and petroleum products. The port handles over 2.5 million tonnes of import and export cargo in a normal trading year.

SPN has been granted Listing with a 'Non-Standard' ("NS") designation. This designation was granted because under the Port Companies Act 1988, changes to SPN's Constitution must be approved by the Minister of Transport. For further information, please see the Port Companies Act 1988 which is publicly available at www.legislation.govt.nz.

Performance

The following information was extracted from South Port New Zealand Limited's Half Year results, released on 14 February 2025:

South Port’s operating revenue from port services in the six months ending 31 December 2024, was $29.57 million (1H24: $25.48 million).

Net profit before income tax was $8.10 million (1H24: $4.29 million).

Net profit after tax was $5.76 million (1H24: $3.03 million), substantially above budget. The Port’s directors have declared a fully imputed interim dividend of 7.50 cents per share (1H24 – 7.50 cents) payable on 7 March 2025.

Based on all known factors at the date of releasing its 2025 interim result, South Port estimates that its full year earnings should be above the upper end of the previous range of $9.3M to $10.3M indicated at the Annual Shareholders Meeting in October 2024.

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