Dubai: Dubai Ports (DP) World, one of the world’s largest port operators, reported on Thursday an 11.7 per cent profit increase for 2014 with throughput up 8.7 per cent across its portfolio.

The port operator made $675 million (Dh2.5 billion) for the year ending December 31, 2014, compared to $604 million a year earlier, it said in a statement to Nasdaq Dubai. Revenue was $3.411 billion for the period, up 11 per cent compared to $3.073 billion in 2013.

“We benefited from increased volumes across our global portfolio, including Embraport in Brazil and London Gate win the UK,” DP World Chairman, Sultan Ahmad Bin Sulayem, later said at press conference.

DP World, whose flagship port is Jebel Ali in Dubai, handled 28,341,000 twenty foot equivalent units (TEUs) — a shipping container measurement, across its portfolio in 2014, up 8.7 per cent compared to the 26,077,000 TEUs in 2013.

Ports in the Middle East, Europe and Africa saw the largest overall gains in 2014 out of the portfolio that also includes ports in the Americas, Asia and Australia.

Revenue from Middle East, European and African ports was $2.386 billion, up 12.3 per cent and 20,973,000 TEUs were handled, up 10.4 per cent.

Bin Sulayem said the board is recommending a total dividend of $195.1 million, or $23.5 US cents per share, which is marginally higher than the 23 US cents it recommended a year ago. This means the Dubai government, which owns 80 per cent of DP World through holding company Dubai World, could receive $156.08 million.

Gross capacity

DP World will be spending between $1.4 billion and $1.7 billion on capital expenditure this year with consolidated capacity increasing to around 42 million TEUs, up from 37.9 million TEUs as of December 31, 2014, Group Chief Executive Mohammad Sharaf said.

This includes 2 million TEUs of capacity added at Jebel Ali

Medium-term plans see DP World increasing gross capacity to 100 million TEUs by the end of the decade.

Earlier this week, DP World completed the purchase of Economic Zones World for $2.6 billion.

DP World shares closed up on Thursday 2.37 per cent to $19.45 on Nasdaq Dubai.