APM Terminals has completed the sale of its semi-automated terminal at Portsmouth, Virginia, to an investment group that will continue to lease the facility to the Virginia Port Authority.
The terminal, renamed Virginia International Gateway, now is owned by a partnership comprising affiliates of investment funds managed by Alinda Capital Partners and U.K.-based Universities Superannuation Scheme Limited.
Terms of the sale were not disclosed. APM Terminals said when the sale was announced last month that it did not wish to remain a non-operating lessor of the terminal. APM Terminals leased the Virginia facility to the port in 2010.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who took office this year, has criticized the 20-year lease and said he wanted to renegotiate the deal. The port’s annual rent payments, currently about $50 million, are set to rise to more than $100 million by the time the lease expires in 2030.
The terminal was the first in the U.S. to use remote-controlled, rail-mounted gantry cranes for stacking and retrieval of containers in its yard. The cranes are operated by longshoremen working at consoles in the terminal’s office building. A similar system began operation this year at Global Terminal in the Port of New York and New Jersey.
Virginia has been working to reduce delays at its port terminals and end operating losses that totaled $17 million in the fiscal year ended June 30. The port reported record container volume and a $1.98 million operating profit in July, the first month of its current fiscal year.
Source: JoC (LF)
Source: JoC