P&O bought for £322m

PORTS operator DP World has bought back P&O Ferries for £322m, 13 years after it sold the firm to its majority shareholder.

The Dubai- based firm expects the deal for P&O Ferries and its logistics arm to complete in the first half of this year. It comes as DP World, which operates London Gateway port and a container terminal at Southampton, is seeking to become a bigger player in global trade and expand beyond ports.

It originally bought P&O Ferries in a £3.9bn acquisition of the wider P&O group in 2006 and later sold it to Dubai World.

P&O Ferries has 21 vessels working across 11 ports and made revenues of £1.1bn in 2017.