Noatum acquisition propels AD Ports Group into global top 20 of container port operators in new industry ranking

AD Ports Group, the leading facilitator of global trade, logistics, and industry in the Arabian Gulf and Red Sea, has climbed for the first time into the global top 20 ranks of world port operators in a new industry survey.

The insertion of AD Ports Group at 19^th place globally by Drewry, a UK firm that tracks the container ports sector, reflects the growing industry relevance of AD Ports Group’s ports business, which has expanded rapidly following a series of new operating concessions and the 2023 acquisition of Noatum, which operates 16 terminals in Spain.

Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi, Managing Director and Group CEO, AD Ports Group, said, “The inclusion of AD Ports Group in the Drewry Top 20 League Table of container port operators confirms the growing international significance of our Group, as we pursue our value-driven expansion in trade, maritime, logistics and industrial development. With guidance from our wise leadership, AD Ports Group is committed to maintaining a leading industry role in all of our core businesses as we grow bigger, more profitable, and more international.’’

AD Ports Group currently has 33 terminals in eight countries, including the UAE, Spain and Pakistan, and 27 are operational, with new terminals scheduled to come online in the UAE and under concession agreements in Republic of Congo, Egypt and Angola. The latest Drewry ranking, included in its new 2024/2025 annual industry report, ranked operators based on container throughput, a measure of volume, using 2022/2023 data.

In 2023, AD Ports Group reported container throughout of 4.91 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs), +13% year-on-year. Total volumes handled at its UAE terminals increased 6% to 4.6 million TEUs. This included six months of contributions from Noatum following its consolidation into the Group. The Ports Cluster contributed 16% and 23%, respectively, to consolidated 2023 revenue and adjusted EBITDA.

Ports Cluster growth has continued apace this year. In 2Q 2024, Ports Cluster revenue rose 83% year-on-year, and 13% on a like-for-like (LFL) basis, to AED 563 million (US $153.29 million).

Also driving Ports Cluster growth were contributions from the Group’s management of four berths on the East Wharf of Karachi Port, Pakistan’s most important port, which started last year under a 50-year concession agreement with Karachi Gateway Terminal Limited (KGTL). 

The acquisition of Noatum and the new concession in Karachi boosted the capacity of AD Ports Group’s global terminals portfolio by 14% to 9.7 million TEUs in 2023.

AD Ports is leveraging multipurpose terminals as opportunities to develop new markets, with the geographic focus primarily in the Indian Subcontinent, Red Sea, Mediterranean, South Asia and Africa.

In 2023 and H1 2024, AD Ports Group signed agreements to develop and operate multipurpose terminals in Safaga (Egypt), Pointe Noire (Republic of Congo) and Luanda (Angola). Preliminary agreements have been signed to develop multipurpose terminals at East Port Said and Sokhna in Egypt, and Chittagong in Bangladesh.

In June 2024, the East Africa Gateway Limited – a joint venture led by AD Ports Group and Adani – acquired a 95% stake in Tanzania International Container Terminal Services (TICTS), which operates berths 8-11 at Dar es Salaam ports, Tanzania. These developments put AD Ports Group on a trajectory to increase its terminals portfolio capacity by more than 60% to 14.5 million TEUs over the next five years.

Saif Al Mazrouei, Ports Cluster CEO, AD Ports Group, said, "The new Drewry global ports operator ranking is an acknowledgement of the growing clout of AD Ports Group on a global stage. The addition of Noatum’s terminals in Spain, our concession in Karachi, Pakistan, and those to come on line in Africa and elsewhere, will allow us to leverage the synergies of an expanding global footprint.’’

AD Ports Group continues to pursue investment opportunities outside the UAE. Noatum added four Spanish terminals to the Group’s portfolio, and following the acquisition, AD Ports also acquired Spain’s Terminal Polivalente Castellon from APMT for EUR 10 million.

Besides including AD Ports Group in the upper echelon of global container port operators, Drewry added AD Ports Group stock in the Drewry Port Equity Index, a weighted benchmark stock index made up of shares of 10 large, publicly traded ports operators.

Active in more than 50 countries across the Middle East, Northern Africa, the Indian Subcontinent, Central and Southeast Asia, and Europe, AD Ports Group is a diversified global trade, transport, logistics and industrial development group that is a major contributor to non-oil based economic growth in the UAE. The Group operates through its five integrated and synergistic Ports, Maritime & Shipping, Economic Cities & Free Zones, Logistics and Digital business clusters.

Aside from its positive effect on the Ports Cluster, the 2023 purchase of Noatum, one of the leading vertically integrated logistics suppliers to global automakers in Europe, transformed the Group’s Logistics business, which was subsequently rebranded Noatum Logistics worldwide. As a result of the takeover, revenue in the Group’s Logistics Cluster more than tripled in 2023 to AED 1.94 billion from AED 532 million in 2022, following the half-year impact of Noatum results.

In H1 2024, the Logistics Cluster generated revenue of AED 2.2 billion, accounting for 26% of Group overall revenue, the second-largest contributor after the Maritime & Shipping Cluster.