Our global freight forwarding network keeps our customers freight moving across the world.

Shipping $ Series: SITC shareholders in line for bumper payout

Hong Kong-headquartered intra-Asia carrier SITC has seen its share price hit record highs in recent days after its board last week voted to approve a special dividend, returning some HK$5.4bn (US$688m) to shareholders. "The board is pleased to announce that it has resolved the declaration and payment of the special dividend of HK$1 (equivalent to US$0.13) per ordinary share of the company to be payable to the shareholders whose names appear on the company's register of members at the close of business on 11 December 2026," it said in a Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE) filing on Friday. According to the CapitalIQ platform, 49.1% of SITC's stock is freely floated on the HKSE, amounting to 2.71bn shares, with the remaining 51.9% held by a British Virgin Islands company. Its share price closed on Monday at HK$47.9, just shy of the record HK$52 seen on 13 October, shortly after the special dividend was first proposed. It is further sign that investors in shipping stocks are having bumper year, in what Loadstar Premium's DeskOne has labelled the "Shipping $ Series", a moniker prompted by a similar "extraordinary special dividend" issued earlier this month by non-operating shipowner Danaos. The Greek shipowner, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has also seen its stock price break all records in recent weeks, and notified the market it was issuing a $5 special dividend to shareholders in mid-October. Meanwhile, approval of SITC's special dividend followed the release of its unaudited operational performance for the first nine months of the year, which showed the intra-Asia carrier remarkably insulated from most of the geopolitical events battering large parts of the shipping industry. It reported carrying 2.91m teu during the period, a 5.9% increase on the 2.75m teu it carried in the first nine months of 2025. Meanwhile, according to Container Trades Statistics (CTS) data from the first eight months of 2026, intra-Asia volume growth stood at 8.6%. Although this could be interpreted as SITC losing market share, given the continued strength of the intra-Asia trades it is unclear whether SITC could have taken advantage of that market growth, considering the rather limited capacity of its vessels. As Alphaliner explained in a September analysis, while SITC is the sixth-largest intra-Asia carrier in terms of fleet capacity, the five larger carriers are all mainline operators that deploy considerably larger ships in the trade than the specialised regional carriers. Alphaliner data shows the average size of a deepsea carrier's intra-Asia vessel at 2,699 teu, "more than double the 1,338 teu average for regional carriers". SITC's average ship size is 1,444 teu. Alphaliner added: "SITC, the leading regional carrier in intra-Asia, makes the point vividly: it runs 109 ships, but its considerably smaller average vessel size leaves its total capacity at 157,000 teu, well behind Maersk and Cosco, putting SITC in sixth spot. "This is in line with SITC's focus on direct services to smaller and niche ports in Asia, rather than competing on scale. SITC is the only carrier on the list besides Maersk (108 ships) and Cosco (122 ships) that operates a fleet of more than 100 vessels in the region," Alphaliner wrote. However, its nine-month earnings appeared to be above market average, with its average freight rate (excluding slot exchange fee income) sitting at $825.90 per teu, "representing an increase of approximately 9.4% from $754.90 per teu for the corresponding period in 2025". CTS's intra-Asia price index for the first eight months shows overall growth of 5.3%, with declines in the first three months completely reversed in the following half year. SITC group revenue for the first nine months was up 14.2%, to $2,808.1m, it said in the HKSE filing.

Freighter conversions plug capacity gap but have limitations

Converted freighters play an important role in the air cargo industry's efforts to add more cargo capacity to the market, but they come with limitations, delegates were told at the TIACA Air Cargo Forum. During the "Freighter at the Forefront" panel session on Wednesday, Atlas Air's chief strategy and transformation officer Martin Drew asked how much of a role freighter conversions play in fleet replacement and bridging the capacity gap until the new generation Boeing 777-8F and Airbus A350F come to market. Bernard De L'Estoile, senior director of freighter marketing at Airbus, said that while converted freighters help fill a gap in the market, "they will not be ideal for everything and (for every operator) because they come with challenges, (they) come with limitations as well for operations". "It will only bring part of the solution," said De L'Estoile. "A converted freighter to me works well if the utilisation is low, because as soon as the utilisation is high then fuel burn kicks in, especially on long ranges. "Clearly a line built with its fuel economy will make the business case flip in towards a line-built aircraft. So for me the conversion isn't a sort of fit-all solution." Responding to the same question, John Perdoch, Boeing's director, product marketing - freighters pointed out the technology, fuel efficiency and cost advantages that a newbuild freighter has over a converted freighter. However, he conceded that given the current demand for widebodies, conversions are an obvious, practical solution. "We are in a supply shortage in this industry, especially in the large widebody space, and so it's natural for the industry to look for a way to bridge their fleets today into their future fleets, and naturally, we're going to think about how conversions play into that space." There are three widebody passenger-to-freighter (P2F) 777 conversion programmes in the market currently. Israel Aerospace Industries' (IAI) Boeing 777-300ERSF passenger-to-freighter (P2F) conversion programme was first to market. The first converted aircraft entered commercial service in September last year and more recently, IAI, Ascent Aviation Services and World Star Aviation announced the commencement of Boeing 777-300ERSF passenger-to-freighter (P2F) conversions in North America. Meanwhile, in April, Mammoth Freighters received Supplemental Type Certification (STC) from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for its 777-200LRMF (Long Range Mammoth Freighter) freighter conversion. The company continues to make progress on its 777-300ERMF programme and expects FAA certification of that variant this year. Kansas Modification Center (KMC) announced in January it had reached a cargo door milestone and expected to begin flight testing and the supplemental type certificate (STC) process for its 777-300ERCF freighter conversion programme in the third quarter. Speaking about the current 777 conversions, Perdoch said that they are a natural stepping stone to the 777-8F, given their operational similarities, which will also be helpful for crew and ground handlers. "I actually think it's a super smooth transition from today's fleet, which adds much-needed capacity in the state of the market. Maybe not quite as much payload, not quite as low a fuel burn as a newbuild. But they're 100-ton freighters. That's a pretty good capacity to add to the market, and we think there's absolutely a place for it in (the industry)." Aside from 777s, aviation advisory firm IBA noted earlier this year that Boeing 767, Airbus A330-200 and A330-300 conversions are also in demand.

Tariff anouncements cause cargo chaos for box terminals, says TiL

Sudden tariff announcements, not tariff levels themselves, trigger costly cargo surges that terminals cannot absorb, delegates at TOC Americas in Cartagena were told. Rather than destroying container trade, said TiL Group's director for terminal investments in North America, Tom van Eynde, tariffs were relocating it, pointing to cargo shifting from Canadian ports into TiL's US terminals as evidence. "It has been somewhat of a wild ride over the past year, the past two years," Mr van Eynde noted, referring to tariffs in the US being introduced and then cancelled. "They're not really reducing the trade flows, they're just relocating them." While the terminal operator saw a reduction in certain trade flows to the US through Canadian ports, he said these were then automatically being picked up by TiL terminals in US ports. Expecting the situation to be "a temporary thing", Mr van Eynde said he expected disruption to settle once tariffs hit a range of 10% to 15% - "at that kind of level we see very little impact anymore on the volume." The real damage, he said, came less from the tariffs themselves than from sudden announcements that triggered a rush of cargo before a deadline, only for conditions to return to normal once it passed. "That is probably the element that has hurt us most," he said. Carriers can respond to a surge by chartering extra vessels and running a new swing, which Mr van Eynde said had even lifted freight rates in their favour. Terminal capacity could not move at the same speed, building more takes years to plan and permit, he said, and by the time it was ready, demand may already have shifted again. "We are the ones taking the biggest hit from these kind of things," he continued. Despite the uncertainty, Mr van Eynde said TiL was investing more aggressively than ever, pointing to its position as the main terminal partner for MSC, the biggest carrier and still growing faster than the market, he added, as a way to offset the political risk in its portfolio. Deploying extra gangs and equipment could absorb a sudden peak, he explained, but it brought congestion to the yard and the rail operation, and a higher cost per box. "It's certainly eating out of our margins," he said.