Double hit knocks P&O to £135m loss

PORTS and shipping giant P&O plunged to a £135m loss last year, hit by its exit from the haulage business in Europe and its failure to reduce its exposure to the global container shipping market.

The loss, compared with a £173m profit last time, came as 68-year-old chairman Lord Sterling and his managing director Sir Bruce McPhail, 63, said they would be retiring over the next couple of years.

Sterling has been trying to engineer an exit from its container shipping joint venture P&O Nedlloyd for some time. Today the business revealed losses of £185m for 2002 thanks to the collapse in shipping rates. The sale of P&O's European logistics business to Wincanton brought in £150m in cash, but the group took a £97m loss on the disposal.

P&O took another £47m of exceptional charges on property disposals and the restructuring of and closures in its UK ferries business. The ferries reorganisation is blamed for a £250m rise in net debt to £1.34bn. The dividend is kept at 9p a share.