COSCO Pacific pops the champagne on 13.9% container volume growth

It still owns the industry's top spot.

According to Barclays, after the Hong Kong market close on Friday 15 Feb 2013, COSCO Pacific announced Jan 2013 container volume growth of +13.9% y/y. COSCO Pacific is the firm's top pick in the ports space, and they expect a continuing turnaround from underperforming port assets to drive the company's EPS growth.

After adjusting for acquisitions and disposals, the underlying growth in comparable container volumes was +10.7% y/y in Jan 2013.

Here's more from Barclays:

We currently forecast 2013E throughput growth for COSCO Pacific of +8.0% y/y, compared to FY2012 volume growth of +9.8% y/y. Volumes at Qingdao port, which was the largest contributor to total throughput with a 26% share, saw Jan 2013 volumes increase +13.0% y/y.

We expect that Jan 2013 will be one of the strongest y/y comps partially driven by Chinese New Year impact. We also again highlight that container volume growth across China is not keeping pace with the recent acceleration in export growth. Chinese Jan 2013 exports rose +25% y/y. 

Positive read-through for HPH Trust (HPHT SP, EW): Jan 2013 volume through the port of Yantian was +8.3% y/y in Jan 2013, recovering from -3.0% y/y in Dec 2012. Yantian is the primary asset of HPH Trust (HPHT SP, EW, PT US$0.70) and we see this recovery in volumes as generally positive for HPH Trust.