HKEx profit grows 88%
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing’s (HKEx) profit attributable to shareholders surged to US$323.07 million in 2006, up 88% compared to 2005, with the total dividend per share at US$0.27.
HKEx’s income rose 54% to US$532.05 million, while operating expenses grew 6% to US$155.12 million, resulting in an operating profit of approximately US$376.92 million.
The basic earnings per share was US$0.30, up 88% compared to a year earlier. The interim dividend per share was US$0.12 and the final dividend per share was US$0.15, totaling US$0.27 per share. This is 88% higher when compared with US$0.14 in 2005. The dividend per ratio was 90%.
The average daily turnover value of the Stock Exchange in 2006 was US$4.34 billion, up 85%. The average daily number of derivatives contracts traded on the Futures Exchange grew 47% to 100,318. The average daily number of stock-options contracts traded on the Stock Exchange grew 107% to 73,390.
New flight movement record set
Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) handled 872 flight movements on February 16, setting a new daily record, according to the Civil Aviation Department.
This represents an 11.8% increase compared with the daily average of 780 movements and breaks the previous single-day record of 870 flight movements on April 14, 2006.
On the same day, there were 500 flight movements operating through the Hong Kong Flight Information Region, a 23% rise compared with an average of 406 movements a day.
During this Lunar New Year holiday period, most of the extra flights were to destinations on the Mainland and in Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia. Taipei was the most popular destination, followed by Guilin and Bangkok.
In 2006, HKIA handled 280,492 aircraft movements with overflight traffic hitting a record 139,714 movements. These figures represented year-on-year increases of 6.4% and 11.2%, respectively.
New York pizza chain opens in airport
The traditional taste of New York pizza — freshly baked with imported New York ingredients — arrived in Hong Kong on March 2 with the opening of the first Famous Famiglia restaurant at the SkyPlaza, the new passenger facilities of Hong Kong International Airport.
The award-wining pizza chain, and “The Official Pizza of The New York Yankees” baseball team, is bringing its distinctive flair and flavors to Hong Kong as part of its strategy to move into high-growth markets, explained Giorgio Kolaj, Executive Vice President of Corporate Business Development. Kolaj is the youngest of the four brothers who opened the first Famous Famiglia restaurant together in 1986.
“We are proud of the relationship with our franchisee partner, Select Service Partner, and we are committed to supporting their success at Hong Kong International Airport,” said Mr. Kolaj. “Like New York, Hong Kong is a vibrant, bustling metropolis full of people who work hard and expect the highest quality of food and service when they want to relax.
“This first restaurant is just the start of what we hope will be a long-term relationship with Hong Kong community. We look forward to doing business here and meeting and talking to our customers.”
Invest Hong Kong’s Associate Director-General of Investment Promotion Mark Michelson welcomed the opening. “Famous Famiglia is a true institution in New York. It is a great example of a family business that through perseverance, commitment to quality and a lifelong love of creating the best pizzas has grown into a global company,” said Mr. Michelson. “We are delighted that, in this first major expansion into Asia, they’ve chosen Hong Kong.”
HKIA experiences passenger, cargo growth
Hong Kong International Airport saw increases in both passenger and cargo throughputs in January, handling 3.53 million passengers and 271,000 metric tons of cargo, up 0.7% and 0.6%, respectively, year-on-year. The number of aircraft movements also rose 2%, to 23,600. The modest year-on-year growth is attributed partially to the fact that January 2006 was particularly busy because of the Lunar New Year.
Cathay Pacific announces 2006 results
Cathay Pacific Airways announced a US$524.1 million profit attributable to shareholders in its 2006 annual results, compared to the US$422.82 million profit recorded the previous year. The 2006 results include a three-month contribution from Dragonair, which became a wholly owned subsidiary of Cathay Pacific on September 28.
Group turnover grew 19.4% to reach a record US$7.79 billion.
In 2006, the airline carried a record 16.7 million passengers, more than the 15.4 million the previous year. Passenger revenue also hit a new high, up 10.9% to US$4,305.76 million, while continued strong demand from first- and business-class passengers helped to push yield up 1.5% to US$0.0602. Capacity, measured in terms of available seat kilometers, rose 7.7% as the airline added new aircraft and further expanded its network.
Cathay Pacific expanded its freighter network and fleet in 2006, helping it carry a record 1,199,000 metric tons of freight. Cargo revenue also hit a new high of US$1.536 billion, up 3.4% year-on-year. Cargo load factor grew 1.3% points to 68.3%. Increased competition and a weakened demand for exports out of Australia, Europe and the United States led to a decrease in cargo yield to US$0.21. New freighter destinations added were Beijing, Chennai, Stockholm and Toronto, while two Boeing 747-400BCFs swelled the freighter fleet to 18.
Airlines release traffic figures
January traffic figures released by Cathay Pacific included, for the first time, figures from its wholly owned subsidiary, Dragonair. During the month, Cathay Pacific and Dragonair together carried 1,734,103 passengers, down 3.5% year-on-year.
An accurate year-on-year comparison is difficult because the Chinese New Year holiday peak was in January 2006, whereas it fell in February this year. This meant the January 2006 figures for revenue passenger kilometers (RPKs) flown were inflated by extra flights — primarily to Mainland and Northeast Asian destinations — that were added to meet seasonal demand. This also explains the 1.4 percentage point drop in passenger load factor to 77 percent for January 2007. Capacity, measured in available seat kilometers (ASKs), rose 1.8% year-on-year.
Dragonair itself carried 332,891 passengers in January with a passenger load factor of 55.2%.
Cathay Pacific and Dragonair together carried 122,551 metric tons of cargo in January, marginally down from the same month in 2006. The combined cargo load factor for the two carriers was 62.2%, down 0.2 percentage points year-on-year.
Dragonair has been steadily expanding its services since the integration with Cathay Pacific. The carrier launched a thrice-weekly service to Busan on January 19 and resumed a daily service to Phuket at the end of 2006. It also increased the number of flights to Phnom Penh on February 16, from five times a week to daily.
Land auction yields US$792.3 million
Three plots of government land was sold for US$792.3 million at a public land auction held by the Lands Department of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region Government on March 13.
The first site, measuring 2.47 acres in Pak Shek Kok, was sold to Century Rise for US$270.51 million, following an opening bid of US$128.2 million. The site is designated for non-industrial (excluding warehouse, hotel and petrol filling station) purposes.
The second site, measuring 4.91 acres and also located in Pak Shek Kok, was sold to ACE Glory for US$448.71 million after an opening bid of US$269.23 million. The site is designated for private residential purposes.
The third site, measuring 0.67 acres in Tai Po, was sold to Sunny Foundation for US$73.07 million after an opening bid of US$41.79 million. The site is designated for non-industrial (excluding warehouse and petrol filling station) purposes.
This is the fifth public land auction of the 2006-07 financial year.
Business receipts up for service industries
Business receipts in value terms of almost all surveyed service industries increased in 2006 compared to a year earlier, according to the provisional business receipts indices released by the Census and Statistics Department (C&SD).
Comparing 2006 with 2005, business receipts of the financing (except banking) industry surged 47.9%, fuelled mainly by the buoyant local stock market.
Other service industries that recorded larger increases in business receipts included the insurance (+21.3%), banking (+19.6%), business services (+19.5%), hotels (+13.8%), transport (+10.6%), import and export trade (+10.1%) and storage (+10.1%).
Analyzed by service domain, business receipts of the tourism, convention and exhibition services domain and the computer and information services domain both increased, by 13% and 9.8% respectively.
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