The container leasing company Textainer reported strong growth in revenue last year, but a drop in profit.
Textainer said it had a profit of $45.5 million in the fourth quarter, about 25 percent less than in the same period 2012. Revenue was $137.5 million for the fourth quarter, an increase of 8 percent from the fourth quarter of 2012. For the full year, profit was $182.8 million, 12-percent less than the prior year. Revenue for 2013 was $529 million, 9-percent more than in 2012.
“The fourth quarter marked the close of a solid year for Textainer,” said Philip K. Brewer, the company’s president and chief executive officer.
Lease rental income grew 15 percent quarter-to-quarter and 22 percent year-to-year. EBITDA increased 9 percent for the year, in line with revenue growth. He said adjusted net income in the quarter declined primarily due to declines in utilization, and gains on container sales and an increase in depreciation.
Brewer said the company invested $950 million in containers delivered last year and that the size of its fleet grew 10 percent over 2012, “marking an industry milestone, as we are the first lessor with a 3-million TEU fleet,” he said. Brewer said that in the first two months of 2014, the company has already invested $165 million in new and used containers.
The company has entered into a new contract with the Department of Defense for the program management, leasing, transportation and repair of intermodal equipment; it also acquired 30,000 TEU of standard dry freight containers from its managed fleet in January 2014 for $35 million, increasing the owned percentage of the total fleet to approximately 77 percent, the highest percentage in company history, according to an earnings release.
“We saw a pick-up in utilization and an improvement in lease terms prior to the Chinese New Year and have been aggressively investing in containers at attractive prices since the start of the year. However, we continue to operate in a very competitive environment, and we expect yields on new container lease-outs to remain under pressure in 2014. Used container prices are at the lowest levels of the last three years, resulting in lower gains on sale of trading and in-fleet containers. New container prices have increased by about 10 percent over the past few months, but it remains to be seen if prices will continue at this level,” Brewer said.
“We believe we are well positioned for 2014, with a conservative 2.3-times leverage ratio and access to additional financing, if needed, to provide us operational flexibility. With 84 percent of our fleet subject to long-term and finance leases and less than 4 percent of our total fleet subject to long-term leases that will expire this year, we predict utilization will remain at or near the current level. We also expect to continue to see attractive purchase-leaseback opportunities. Overall, we believe our performance in 2014 will be similar to that of last year.”
Textainer fleet climbs above 3 million TEU
