Family with a major stake in Port of Liverpool owner Peel Ports shares in dividends pot of more than £150m despite sharp fall in pre-tax profits. Tony McDonough reports

Port of Liverpool owner Peel Ports has reported a sharp fall in annual pre-tax profits and slightly lower revenues amid the “continuing weakness of global container markets”.

However, shareholders at Peel Ports Group, the second-biggest port operator in the UK, shared dividends of £153.9m, up from £138.9m in the previous year. There was also a further final dividend of £74.5m.

In accounts filed on Companies House for the 12 months to March 31, 2024, the company said revenues fell from £696.3m to £693.7m. Pre-tax profits were £141.6m, significantly lower than the £397.3m reported a year earlier.

Major shareholders in the group are the billionaire Whittaker Family. They own a 68% stake in Peel Group which has a 37.6% of Peel Ports, which operates ports in Liverpool, Heysham, Medway, Clydeport, Great Yarmouth and Dublin.

Its assets also include Manchester Ship Canal, where it offers bulk solid cargo handling at Runcorn and Ellesmere Port. It also has a short sea shipping line and owns BG Freight Line, which provides short sea container services.

In the annual report the company says: “tonnage throughput of commodities handled by the group has decreased from 63.6m tonnes to 57.2m tonnes with both the ports and shipping segments handling lower volumes than the previous year.

“This primarily due to the continuing weakness of global container markets and lower volumes of other commodities across the UK ports industry and due to general economic uncertainty.”

During the 12-month period Peel Ports employed a total of 1,259 people and it also revealed a significant rise in capital expenditure from £135.2m to £208.5m.

In March 2024 the business unveiled a huge solar power project at the Port of Liverpool that will see 63,000 solar panels installed generating up to 31MW of electricity. It has teamed up with energy giant E.ON on the project.

That announcement came just weeks after Peel Ports announced it was set to increase its wind power capacity at the port, installing new turbines to replace the existing structures. Its generating capacity would be around 20MW.