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DP World Group Chairman and CEO Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem said he was cautious about the outlook for 2021 and will be selective on new investments.
“Looking ahead, we will continue to be selective on new investments and focus on the integration of our recent acquisitions to drive synergies, containing costs to protect profitability and managing growth capex to preserve cashflow. We remain strongly committed to our 2022 combined (DP World and PFZW) leverage target of less than 4x Net Debt to EBITDA," Sulayem said.
The state-owned port operator said its ability to adapt and change has been key to its success and that the company will evolve for continued growth.
According to a Nasdaq Dubai filing, the company reported a 29% slump in 2020 profit. Its revenue rose 11 percent to $8.5 billion but posted an annual profit of $846 million, down from $1.19 billion in 2019.
The CEO of one the world's largest port operators remains cautious on 2021 outlook.
“Overall, we are pleased that our business has performed better than expected in 2020 and, while we remain cautious on the outlook given the continued issues surrounding the pandemic, geopolitical uncertainty in some parts of the world and the ongoing trade war, we are encouraged by the start to trading in 2021 and remain positive on the medium to long-term outlook for the industry and our business,”Sulayem said.
“We have continued to make progress on our strategy to enable trade and deliver an integrated supply chain solution to cargo owners. We have focused our efforts on digitizing logistics and developed solutions for several verticals. We are pleased to state that cargo owners have responded positively, and we are now delivering efficient solutions to our customers, which bodes well for the future," he added.
In February 2020, DP World de-listed its equity from the stock exchange and returned to private ownership. The company had said the move would enable DP World to “focus on its medium-to-long-term strategy of transforming from a global port operator to an infrastructure-led end-to-end logistics provider.”
(Reporting by Seban Scaria; editing by Daniel Luiz)
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