ALMOST unnoticed, Malaysia's second-busiest container terminal Westport has emerged as an extremely profitable entity in its own right.

In the process, the privately-owned port may have become too expensive a target for predators like Northport, Westport's other half in what's collectively known as Port Klang.

For months now, talk had been rife that Northport would acquire Westport to become Malaysia's largest port in terms of containers handled. Northport; which is listed on Bursa Malaysia, is majority-owned by Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB).

Last year, Westport overtook Northport in terms of work, doing 52 per cent of the 5.6 million containers handled in total by Port Klang. Only the Johor-based port of Tanjung Pelepas single-handedly did more work - clearing over 4 million containers last year.

In the process, Westport made a net profit of slightly over RMIOO million last year on revenues of more than RM500 million.

The terminal is owned and operated by Klang Multi Terminal, a private company capitalised at RM 100 million and majority-controlled by Tan Sri G. Gnanalingam, a low-profile businessman.

According to industry executives, Westport was valued at RM 1.7 billion in 2000 after Hong Kong businessman Li Ka-shing bought 30 per cent of Klang Multi Terminal for RM500 million then.

But the terminal has been growing by 20 per cent a year in terms of work done and fully expects to clear over 5 million containers by 2008.

"Given its growth since, I think it would be fairly valued at around RM2.5 billion now." said one of the executives. "That could be a bit too steep for Northport."

Westport's growth illustrates the huge strides made by Malaysian ports since 1995, when Gnanalingam began his operations on a wing and a prayer.

At that time Malaysians shipped 3 million containers through Singapore every year. That figure alone was more than the combined capacity of all domestic ports then.

Malay Mail, 23.6.2005