Regional Container Lines PCL : Financial Results as at 31 December 2016

25 Feb 2017

In 4Q2016, the total liftings increased 6% year-on-year at 467,255 TEUs. Lifting for SOC grew by 3% year-on-year to 187,573 TEUS and COC's liftings increased by 9% year-on-year to 279,682 TEU.

With the Company's stringent cost control coupled with the developed data system, which improved the cost control efficiency, the cost of freight and operations hence decreased by 6% to THB 2,740 million in 4Q2016 after taking into consideration a 12% decrease in oil price, compared to 2015.

Price competition led to in a 11% decrease in freight rate in 4Q2016 compared to 4Q2015, while the freight rate per TEU increased 3% compared to Q32016, resulting in an operating income of THB 2,634 million. The company recorded a net loss of THB 494 million in 4Q2016 versus a net gain of THB 249 million in 4Q2015, in view of THB 163 million being provisions for loss in both vessel impairment and onerous contract.

For the twelve months of 2016, the company recorded a total liftings increase of 2% at 1,781,816 TEUs compared to twelve months of 2015, meanwhile SOC liftings decreased 8% at 733,167 TEUs compared to year 2015 and COC liftings at 1,048,649 TEUs or increased 10% year-on-year, this complied with the business plan to increase COC.

The twelve months' loss in 2016 was THB 1,376 million due to provisions for loss in both vessel impairment and onerous contract of THB 163 million as well as competition resulting from lower freight rate which decreased by 15% per TEU when compared to last year. This effect has caused several shipping companies to suffer loss and explore merger and consolidation avenues in 2016.

However, there are signs of freight rate recovery in recent months as compared to previous year. This is basically as a result of current trend of economic growth, lesser competitor arising from mergers and higher oil price - all of which are the contributing factors to higher freight rate.

About RCL

Founded in 1979, RCL is a Thai based container shipping line. Listed on the Thai Stock Exchange since 1988, its core business is in the carriage of Shipper owned containers (SOC) and its own Carrier container containers (COC) in a service network that is fully Asia centric. RCL currently owns and operates a fleet of 46 vessels with sizes ranging between 500 TEUs to 3316 TEUs. It also has a fleet of 71,723 TEUs to support its own COC carriage as well. RCL operates a network of 64 offices made up of both owned and agency partner offices to support its operations. Today, RCL is recognised as amongst the leading SOC and Intra Asian operator by both peers and customers alike.

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