Textainer Group Holdings Ltd reported a $44.3 million profit, or 87 cents per diluted share, for the fourth quarter. Adjusted net income was $41.1 million, or 81 cents per share, beating analysts’ consensus of 50 cents per share.

The Bermudian-headquartered company is one of the world’s largest lessors of intermodal freight containers, with a fleet of 3.7 million TEU [20-foot equivalent units] at the end of 2020.

For the full year, Textainer had net income of $72.8 million, or $1.36 per diluted share, compared with $56.7 million in 2019.

Olivier Ghesquiere, president and chief executive officer of Textainer said the fourth quarter results underscored renewed strength in the company’s business.

“We reacted swiftly to the sharp rebound in cargo volumes that started last July by investing heavily in new containers in a timely manner. During the second half of 2020, we added a total of $890 million of containers into our fleet, including $470 million during the fourth quarter, substantially all of which are currently on lease,” Mr Ghesquiere said.

The company has secured more than $925 million of new containers for delivery during the first six months of this year, to “secure a stable stream of additional cash flows and profits over the next several years”. Substantially all the new containers are said to be pre-committed to leases.

Mr Ghesquiere said Textainer had taken action to strengthen its business, financial resources and long-term outlook.

He said: “In particular, we bought back 12 per cent of our shares during 2020. We lowered our borrowing costs to 3.1 per cent and created additional capacity for container investments with the successful issuance of nearly $1.3 billion in asset backed financings in 2020, followed by a $550 million issuance recently completed in February at historically low rates.”

Textainer’s total lease revenue for the year was $600.8 million, about $19 million less than 2019. Its debt increased to $3.7 billion from $3.55 billion, year-on-year.

During 2020, the company repurchased 6.7 million of its common shares, with $770,034 of those repurchased in the fourth quarter.

Looking ahead, Mr Ghesquiere said: “As we look into the new year, we continue to see high demand for cargo and containers. We remain focused on the continued discipline of our long-term strategic plan and strict profitability criteria that will ensure sustainable value creation to our shareholders.”