Hutchison Port Holdings Trust

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the conference call of Hutchinson's Port Holdings Trust interim results announcement for the period ended 30th of June, 2026. Now, I will hand over to Ivor Chow, the CEO of Hutchinson's Port Holdings Trust. Mr. Chow, please begin.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for joining our half-year results call. And as usual, I will first give a review of, you know, how I saw the first half, how we did, as well as, you know, give some of my thoughts as to, you know, what is the likely outcome for the second half as well. And then I'll pass on to our CFO, Ivy Tong, to go through the news review, and then we'll end it with the Q&A. Overall, first half, I think for the trust-wise, I think we did pretty well, considering all things, given how volatile the world has been, as well as the Ukraine conflict, the Israeli conflict, as well as the Iranian conflict. We have actually done quite well year on year, as well as kind of meeting our own internal budget as well. Overall, our volume was up against last year, overall about 5%. Obviously, the outperformer has been for over the last couple of years, Yan Tian, and Yan Tian continues to do quite well in the first half. Hong Kong is still collectively on the first year below last year, 5%. But if you kind of look at how we did first quarter, we were actually down closer to 10%. And so we actually had a positive quarter for Hong Kong. and the first time that we have seen actually growth for Hong Kong over the last three, four years. So Hong Kong seems to start to show sign of stabilizing. So overall, if you look at from a volume standpoint, from a margin standpoint, and from a profitability standpoint, and because we have been able to manage our interest costs fairly well, So we did have, you know, decent amount of profit growth. And so, you know, we are, we will be distributing half year interim dividend of five Hong Kong dollar cents per unit, which is the same as what we did during last year in 2025 as well. And if you kind of look through some of the volume growth in the first half, you would see that, you know, for Yantian in particular, U.S. and Europe trade continues to do quite well, in particular the U.S. trade in the second quarter, because U.S. trade was actually down first quarter due to the tariff impact. But I think after President Trump and President Xi, Chairman Xi met in Beijing, you know, the market felt that there was kind of resemblance to normalization between the U.S.-Sino relationship, and therefore, you know, a lot of shippers were rushing to export their U.S. cargo in particularly April and May and a little bit of June as well. So you would have seen that the U.S. freight rates have actually increased quite a bit during that period of time. So I would look at that as more for front loading and obviously because last year, if some of you remember, the tariff war actually started in the second quarter. So we actually had an unusually low base last year and hence the Strong quarter that we have seen in the U.S. is just due to a lower base last year as well. And we are monitoring the situation, whether it would continue into the third quarter. I think third quarter, we're still looking okay for the time being. But a lot would depend on, you know, the further meetings that is planned between, you know, Chairman Xi and President Trump in the U.S. visit as well, the APEC visit as well in Shenzhen. So there's certainly a little bit of front loading involved and whether that will continue into the fourth quarter will actually depend a lot of the consumption demand. Obviously, with fuel prices being quite high, inflation is obviously quite high in the US as well as other places. And that may impact consumer sentiment coming into the second half as well. And obviously, you know, with the Fed, and now looking potentially to increase rates rather than decrease rates as originally anticipated. Interest rate will play a factor, not only in the consumption, but also in the fact that we would have about $500 million of refinancing to be done, likely to be a bond depending on market conditions. But we are looking at quite a step up in interest costs from the refinancing. and so we do expect pressure on interest costs in the second half as well. But we are continuing our plan to pay down debt, continue paying down the one billion that we have committed to every year and we will do so this year as well. Hopefully that will offset some of the interest cost increase due to underlying rate increase as well. So overall, while the Iranian war has affected fuel prices which obviously impacted our costs as well but the volume has grown and we are less affected by the Middle East trade comparatively so with Hong Kong transshipment picking up a little bit with Yantian export picking up a bit we're still doing relatively well looking into the second half as I said a lot of uncertainty would relate to some of the conflicts we've seen. Even the Red Sea is now looking to flare up again, and that may have some impact. But due to the regional conflicts around the world, we are seeing a lot of congestions around ports around the world, in Singapore, in Shanghai, Ningbo, due to weather. So there is actually, and with ships coming online from the shipping lines as well. A lot of new ships coming on. There is a need for a buffer port, if you will, to manage some of the port congestion we have seen around the world. So Hong Kong being a bit underutilized potentially can pick up some of that transshipment volume as well, which we are working very hard on. You know, Hong Kong is embarking on its five-year plan as part of the 15 five-year plan of China. And, you know, we're lobbying very hard with the government to see what policies can be provided to support the Port of Hong Kong as well. So we are working in all fronts to try to, you know, get Hong Kong back into shape. But with the uncertainty over, you know, consumer demand and the overall supply chain situation, we are cautious in terms of the second half envelope. So with that, I pass it on to Ivy to give us a bit of a run through the numbers, and then we'll go into the Q&A.

If I jump onto slide nine, looking at our throughput volume, for the trust at the first half of 2026, we had throughput of around 11.7 million, a 5% year-on-year increase. In terms of YICT and HICT, there's a 10% growth, so throughput ended up at around 8.5 million, and for HPHT Kuai-Ting, we had a 5% year-on-year drop, so that throughput was around 3.3 million. If we look at the revenue and other income, on the left-hand side of the bar chart, you see that we had a 10% year-on-year growth, so that total revenue and other income reached around HK$6.2 billion. Mainly, this is due to higher throughput as well as higher storage income, and also for this half, we also benefited from the RMB appreciation. And if you then look onto the right-hand side in terms of the segment information, what you'll see that is in the first half of 2026, 83% of our revenue came from operations in Chinese mainland with the remaining 17% from Hong Kong. The increase in proportion for Chinese mainland when compared to the first half of 2025 is largely due to the RMB appreciation impact. If we then jump to the total capex, you will notice that for the first half of June 2026, total capex was around 277 million, 28% increase year-on-year. This is largely due to the increase in capex for Yantan as they progress with its QC heightening program and also with the purchase of new QC to just accommodate the increase in deployment of larger container vessels. and then reading on then is to take a look at our total debt and net debt position. What you see that in the first half is that there's a drop in short-term debt which is offset by an increase in our long-term debt and this is mainly just due to the refinancing for the redemption of the March US 500 million bond with a new five-year bank loan facility that was done at March. So that total consolidated debt at the end of June was around $24.2 billion. And included reflected in here is that from our announced plan of our $1 billion repayment, we've already undertaken $200 million repayment in the first half of this year, with the remaining $800 million expected to take place in the second half of this year. In terms of net attributable debt, it is around $17.2 billion, which is a 4% reduction when compared to the year-end position at the end of December 2025. As I just mentioned, we're currently assessing the refinancing option for the US $500 million guarantee notes that is due to expire in September, with most likely market conditions meeting with a new bond issuance. Finally, I just want to go through quickly the half-year results, which is on slide 15. As mentioned before, total revenue was 10% better year-on-year at $6.2 billion. Our total operating expenses recorded a drop of 3% to around $3.4 billion, and included in there is a disposal gain that we have realized in the first half of 2026 of $164 million, which is in relation to the land expropriation at Yanteng. Upgrading profits is around 2.8 billion, 30% better. As we mentioned, we had a 10% saving in interest costs, so that interest expenses was around 382 million, largely because average highball for the first half is lower than the same period last year, and also we benefited from last year's 1 billion lower payments. profit after tax was 1.5 billion, 47% better, with profit after tax attributable to unit holders at 491 million, 85% better year on year. So that's the update for the financial positions and results of HPH Trust.

And we can start the Q&A.

We will now begin the questions and answer sessions. Participants with questions to pose, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad, and you will be placed in a queue. To cancel the queue, please press star 2. Mr. Deepak Maria from HSBC, please go ahead with your questions.

Go ahead. Can you hear us, Deepak?

Hello. Hello. My first question is about the debt exposure. You mentioned that, and even in the previous call during the full year, you mentioned that it's more aligned to the high bar now. Could you help us understand what proportion of your debt is currently based or priced upon high bars?

Currently, 37% of our debt are under fixed rates, so the remainder are all highball-based borrowings at the trust level. Okay.

Okay. So the sensitivity would be more towards the highball now rather than the Fed policy rate. Is that a fair assumption?

Yes.

Okay. Okay. And when we look at the support trend, right? Yes, second quarter was an outstanding quarter, but from a very low base. However, even in the second half of last year, we had low single digit growth in Yantian. In that context, is it fair to assume that growth may slow down in the second half from the first half of 10%, but it might still be in low to mid single digits? Is that a a reasonable outlook?

I think that would be a fairly reasonable outlook, given what we are seeing. Obviously, the key thing is, as you know, last year, the US Shell 301, in terms of US leveraging port fees to Chinese-made ships, that was, you know, President Trump deferred that for one year. But it is due to for another extension sometime this year. Whether that will happen or not may have an impact on what the actual volume growth will be. Again, like I said, if your sign-on relationship normalizes in the second half, then what you have laid out is definitely more possible.

Okay. And with respect to the confidence of your customers, we've seen quite a number of shipping carriers come out and upgrade their guidance for the full year? Of course, it is driven by a very strong rate environment, but do you think that guidance upgrade also translates to a better throughput outlook for port operators such as yourself?

Well, shipping lines are more dependent on freight rates, and freight rates are high mostly because of the conflicts that we have seen with Hormuz, now with Resi, and and the Cape of Good Hope. So that's more to do with, you know, capacity and utilization of shipping lines. Now, whether that actually can translate to actually more goods going through the pipeline, we actually more directly correlated with supply and demand on consumption rather than, you know, the supply chain smoothness, if I can use that word. So not directly correlated, but, you know, like during COVID, right? If the world is congested and Port Congestion does happen. Even though if throughput may slow down, sometimes we do pick up more and start income that can offset some of that lost throughput as well. So it's tough to see. But for us, I think, you know, if we have every year, you know, 3% to 5% throughput growth, I think that's usually the outlook for the global throughput container growth, if you will.

Okay. Okay. And when you speak specifically for Hong Kong, your peer group, the Costco Shipping Port Company, right, they are also joint venture partners with you and Costco head and ACT. Over there, when I look at their disclosures, the throughput for Hong Kong for those two particular terminals put together has gone up by about 3% in the first half. However, when I look at your reporting for Hong Kong terminals put together, including the HIT terminals, then it is a decline of 5%. Could you help us reconsider? Does this mean that HIT saw a steeper decline versus growth for the joint venture terminals? How should we think about this? And you also mentioned that there's some normalization. Help us understand better how this plays out.

Okay. Well, Hong Kong operates under the seaport lines, meaning that the Costco hit, ACT, HIT, as well as MTL, are all run under shared utilization, if you will. So we do not actually particularly look at one terminal throughput over another. It's kind of like the airport. If you have gates 1 to 80 in Hong Kong, whether 1 to 10 you utilize more and 60 and 70 is less really depends on our cost structure. Sometimes it is, and because Terminal 8, where Costco and ACT resides, are the newer terminal, so their cost basis tends to be a bit more efficient so we tend to actually put more volume the bigger ships there whereas you know some of the barges some of the smaller ships are handled at the older facilities so from that point of view I wouldn't read too much into the relative volume I would look at Hong Kong as a whole to look at you know the throughput okay and then when you look at Hong Kong as a whole do you see any improvement happening or is it

that they're still seeing declines. I mean, we are still seeing a 5% decline this year in the first half. So when should we expect this to stabilize?

As I was saying, first quarter Hong Kong was down minus 10. If you look at the published throughput figures in the Hong Kong MD Marine Department. And we have actually reduced that decline from minus 10 to minus 5. So that means the second quarter was actually a positive quarter. And I said, we haven't seen that for over the last couple of years. Now, does it mean that Hong Kong will now go back to a steady increase over the year? It remains to be seen, but I think with what I said earlier about the port congestions that we've seen around the region, there are signs that shipping homes are looking for at least kind of like a contingent a port and a buffer and Hong Kong can provide that because of the location and our efficiency and we are seeing some transhipment starting to flow back into Hong Kong. So I think we'll want to see a couple more orders to see whether that is indeed the case but also as I said earlier that the Hong Kong government and Beijing is quite focused on trying to help Hong Kong to stand on his own feet. They're having over the last couple of years seen volume decline. So we are potentially looking to see some policy support for the port of Hong Kong. So with potentially some different shipment coming back with more policy support, then at least on the medium long term, Hong Kong can kind of recover some of the lost volume as well. So that's something that I'm looking out for. We haven't seen it yet, but you know, I think by the end of the year, we'll see a better sign whether Hong Kong is recovering or not.

Okay, and for Ivy, a question on the housekeeping part. You mentioned, the announcement mentioned that the other operating income increased significantly because of a disposal gain of some land expropriation. Could you help us quantify how much of this was?

How much of? The gain is $154 million. Yes, disposal gain.

And this is something like a non-recurring item, I would say, right? It's a one-off gain.

Correct. We actually had an announcement on that in appropriation, I think, a couple of months ago.

Okay. Thank you for having us. And last question on Yantian East expansion. Any updates which you would like to share at this stage?

So our first berth of the Eastport expansion is still on track to roll out first quarter in 2027. so that will provide much needed capacity for Yen Tian as well because Yen Tian this year potentially could again record a record high throughput as well so additional capacity will help us grow over the next couple of coming years.

Thank you and that's it from me. I'll jump back into the queue. Have a great evening guys. Thank you.

For the next questions Herbert Lu from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi, Herbert. Go ahead. Hi, Herbert. You can go ahead. Can you hear us?

Can you hear me now? Sorry?

Yeah, yeah. We can hear you now.

Yeah, yeah.

Go ahead. Yeah.

Thanks, Edward and Abby, for hosting this briefing. At first, congratulations on the improvement in the results. I have three questions. First question is for the peak season. As you know, the peak season this year started earlier from May, especially for U.S. restocking. So people may have concern that the peak season may go to an end earlier as well. So U.S. and U.S. retailers forecast significant container import decline from August. Have you observed a similar trend? That's for the first question. The second question is for the port congestion. You mentioned there will be many new ship delivery which may make the port congestion worse. Before that, what caused the port congestion? And due to the extreme weather or any other reason? And can we charge a higher storage income from the port congestion? And the third question is on your DPU guidance. Thank you.

Thank you, Hubert. On the first one, on the peak season, yes, traditionally peak season starts from around July all the way to September to early October. Obviously, if you ask me, the peak season has been less of a case over the last couple of years, especially with the supply chain being very compressed and volatile as it is. And with the tariff war starting last year, the peak season largely disappeared because people are starting to front load, back load, depending on what the Sino-U.S. relationship and the tariff situation is. So this year, the peak season obviously started early. The restocking started in April and May, largely because as I said earlier, after the meeting between Chairman Xi and President Trump, people were rushing to get the goods out in case of any deteriorating situation unforeseen. So I do believe that there is a concern in the market and some shipping lines more so than others that things will slow down a bit quicker in the first quarter than typically do. But we're still looking at a decent June so far, and I think we're looking still solid in July. But I think it'll start tailoring off, taping off in August as well. And how far it would continue into the fourth quarter will actually depend on consumption, like the Fed rates, as well as inflation and the fuel costs. So all these are kind of playing into how I foresee the second half is. I think we're still reasonably optimistic okay for fourth quarter, but fourth quarter can be a bit choppy if all those things don't turn out to be positive. So that's on the peak season. On the port congestion side, obviously a lot of them is due to the Iranian conflict. When the Middle East was shut down, a lot of the containers couldn't get into Jabir Ali and the Middle East. and a lot of them has to kind of divert back to Singapore to the surrounding region. So Singapore right now is fairly congested with sometimes the ships having to wait one or two or even three, four days. And so it's starting to affect and blowing back. The weather is obviously affecting more of the Shanghai, Ningbo area, not so much in Southern China. and so what it means is that shipping lines and also in Nansha as well during the Chinese New Year the channel was affected because there were vessels sunk into the channel and that affected the Chinese New Year peak season at both Shekou and Nansha as well so Yantian and Hong Kong being fairly unaffected by the cost congestion poor congestion we're seeing you know volume growth as a result. But for us, we're seeing marginally more storage revenue just because of, you know, some of the Middle East goods being stuck and couldn't leave. But not significant. Not unless we're seeing kind of like a COVID full congestion do we see, you know, a massive increase in storage costs. For the time being, you know, both Yen Chien and Hong Kong is operating normally. But if the Red Sea is starting to flare up again and things get worse, we can potentially see more of a bad block coming in. We'll have to see it and watch carefully. Finally, on the DPU, I think for us is a function of several things. Like you said, whether the throughput, the growth will continue into a second quarter and how much into the fourth quarter. whether the Fed will increase interest rates. That will have an impact on our interest costs, as well as the refinancing, you know, the $500 million that we have to refi, you know, at what rate and where Hypo is going. So all these things come into play a lot in the DPU, and that's why for us, you know, we had a decent first half, but I think we were watching carefully, you know, how things transpired in the second half. before we decide on what the full-year dividend is. For now, we're just kind of maintaining the current flow for now.

Understood. Thank you, Eric Lea.

Thank you, Herbert.

For the next questions, Paul Chu from TH Securities. Please go ahead with your questions.

Hi. Thanks again for the presentation. just one topical question if I could I mean despite the theories by the US on China would you surprise that shipments to the US still grow at quite a significant pace considering your baseline assumptions is usually only 1-3% volume to heavy if I'm not mistaken okay thanks Paul well actually if you kind of split up the first half into two quarters right

U.S. volume was actually down quite a bit in the first quarter. It was down, you know, double digit at 12, 13%. So it wasn't until the meeting between Chairman Xi and President Trump where, you know, people get a sense of, you know, relationship normalizing when things suddenly, you know, people are saying, oh, well, we better get whatever is in the warehouse in China out the door into the U.S. And there's a lot of replenishing impact as well. And also I think the fear of of USTR 301 coming back in the third quarter and impacting freight rates again. So there was a massive flow out in the second quarter. So it was actually, it has been a very volatile first half, if you will. So yes, we were caught a bit surprised. That's why freight rates have actually gone up on US by quite a bit because of capacity constraint. and that's good for shipping lines. But these kind of boom-bust quarters for shipment is actually not good for retailers, for planners, and for port as well. I mean, we're either waiting for ships or suddenly we're handling multiple vessels in one day. So it's actually not good for planning. But we'll take it. For now, it's still looking, again, as I said, looking into June and July. I think we're still okay. but there is a worry that it will start taping off in August.

From your lens at least, does it mean that even with these tariffs, Chinese goods are still as competitive?

Oh yes, from that point of view, yes. I think Chinese goods are still really relevant, especially on the e-commerce side. I mean, it depends on which... Commodity and sector, right? There's the EV, there's the solar panels and the batteries. Those tend not to go to the U.S. and, you know, and they are more concentrated in the northeastern part of China, whereas in the southeast side is more on the e-commerce side. So we have actually seen strong growth from the e-retailers. And they are continuing, and not just to the U.S., but to Europe as well. I mean, it's not like the Europe economy is doing very well, but the fact that these relatively cheaper price competitive retailers are actually doing quite well in the market as we speak.

thanks for the call just two more last questions when you're referring to congestion helping transshipment in Hong Kong could I trouble you maybe elaborate what would be a typical route or maybe a typical port that may have been congested and as a result they have to divert more to Hong Kong an example if possible I think Singapore would be one and certainly some Shanghai I mean Hong Kong I think

in terms of location, it's quite good. I mean, in terms of, you know, kind of in between connecting, you know, Shanghai, Singapore, and ships don't have to wait. I mean, the ship size is getting large. So the chartering rates of ships, if they have to wait at anchor for, you know, three or four days, could be in the hundreds of thousands of US dollars on a per vessel basis. So with Hong Kong, you know, having excess capacity, it just naturally soak up some of that ships So a lot of them can be east-west, north-south trade, even inter-Asia connecting to it as well. So, you know, we have all sorts. It really depends on the network arrangements of shipping line. For example, Gemini with Maersk and Hapac does most of its transshipment in Yanqian.

whereas you know MSC is looking to do more because MSC historically relied more on Singapore but MSC is now putting some of their strengths into Hong Kong as well so it's really shipping line specific okay thanks is it just one last one on just the Red Sea again of course the conflict is starting to happen again so I just wondering how does it kind of impact you or may not be material because probably that shipping lane wasn't really used much anymore

You mean on fuel?

Oh, no, no. On Red Sea, again, the conflict seems to be flaring back up again. Yeah, just wanting a good impact on you per se.

Well, Red Sea is not fully open, so a lot of shipments are still using Cape of Good Hope to circle around. But I think in the end, it's just, you know, conflicts, meaning that there is impact to, you know, ports. And so sometimes the congestions do kind of blow back as soon as, you know, ports start getting affected as well. So these are the things that we're watching out carefully. And Europe is actually fairly congested at the moment. So, you know, with things kind of blowing up again, it started kind of like during COVID going back to Asia as well. So that's the worry that we have.

not so much other than during Iran a lot of Middle East goods couldn't get into you know through her moods

So they actually, some of the ship has to unload some of the boxes at the port. So we benefit a little bit from the storage income just because the boxes, you know, they couldn't leave. The sellers either find new sellers elsewhere and reroute the goods so that they end up, you know, spending a bit more time in port. So we did have a bit more storage income as a result of that.

Okay, got it. Thanks so much for asking my questions. Thank you.

Thanks, Mark.

Mr. Bruce from UBS, please go ahead with your questions.

Go ahead, Bruce. Hi.

Hi, Edward and Ivy. Thanks for taking my question. So my question actually is regarding the tariff outlook. So actually, it has been nearly five years since the last round of tariff hike, and the shipping companies actually were making decent earnings in the past few years. So can we expect another round of tariff hike in 2027 or 2028?

That's my question. Right. So for us, in fact, you know, Yantian, we typically do raise tariff as and when shipping lines contract come due and we try to negotiate more like, you know, kind of CPI inflation type of, you know, low single digit tariff increase. And Yantian has been getting tariff increase over the last couple of years as well. Hong Kong, on the other hand, because Hong Kong is losing business. So Hong Kong, we have not had any tariff increase for quite a while. We have adjusted some of the local cargo fees, but those are minor, not significant. So you wouldn't see an ASP increase in Hong Kong, but you would expect ASP increase in Yantian, and also partly because some of our tariff is based in Renminbi, and Renminbi has appreciated as well. So definitely low single digit for us, ASP growth in Yantian.

Yeah, thanks. So kind of follow up, so Currently, how much is upside compared with the capped pricing we filed with the government compared with our current actual pricing?

You mean the public tariff versus what we have? We're actually fairly close to the published tariff already. But on the transshipment side, there's room. So it really depends on the specific trade and shipping lines. So our rates, there's a variety of different rates depending on volumes and tiers. So we aren't quite ready to kind of push that cap yet. And China is looking to relax some of the port tariff increase for Shanghai and northeastern part of China. So with those other Chinese ports raising tariff, it would give us a bit more room as well.

Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, we are not able to accommodate all the questions. Apologize for any inconvenient calls. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

Thank you everybody for joining. Thank you.