100 companies eyeing DP World's US assets

Dubai: Some 100 companies have expressed an interest in buying facilities at major US ports from DP World, a source close to the sales process told Reuters in the United States.

DP World chairman Sultan Ahmad Bin Sulayem, who is also Executive Chairman of the Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corp, told Gulf News yesterday the company is currently evaluating the bids.

"We are going through the process of evaluation. It is a very detailed process," Bin Sulayem said, without disclosing who the potential buyers were. "There are bids from everywhere, we are analysing them," he added.

The Dubai firm acquired management of container terminal operations at the ports of New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore and New Orleans under its $6.8 billion acquisition of British port operator Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) in February.

Under opposition from US legislators, DP World announced in March it would sell the US part of P&O's assets, estimated to be worth $700 million, within six months to an American entity.

Asked if the sale process would be completed on schedule, Bin Sulayem said: "We don't know. I cannot predict anything. There are customers and we are talking to them."

Among the companies expressing interest in buying the US port facilities are port operators, private equity funds, infrastructure funds, shipping companies and logistics firms, the Reuters source said.

Earlier this year, SSA Marine, Maher Terminals Inc of Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, and Marine Terminals Corp of Oakland, California, were considered potential buyers of the DP World assets, according to ship brokers.

"Potential buyers for P&O's US terminal business are US terminal operators such as MTC and Maher, or possibly private equity firms or infrastructure investors," Neil Davidson, research director at London's Drewry Shipping Consultants, told Gulf News.

The US port management business is highly fractionalised. According to Davidson, global firms are very important in the US container port management business.

Of the top 10 container terminal operators in the US, seven are owned by international operators. This number will become six once a US buyer for P&O's terminals is found, Davidson said.