China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s only integrated steelmaker, yesterday posted a pretax profit of NT$608 million (US$20.75 million) for last month, down 5.47 percent from the previous month and 44.93 percent lower than the year before.
The pretax profit for last month included an unspecified investment gain from the company’s disposal of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares.
Between Sept. 4 and Oct. 29, China Steel booked a NT$565.4 million gain from selling 7.8 million shares in TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, as part of efforts to boost its profit and cash flow, according to the company’s previous stock exchange filings. The company still holds 21.33 million shares of, or 0.08 percent stake in, TSMC, it said.
In yesterday’s statement, the Greater Kaohsiung-based CSC said sales increased 3.52 percent month-on-month, but that was down 19.68 percent year-on-year to NT$15.74 billion last month.
In the first 10 months of the year, CSC’s pretax profit plunged 80.69 percent to NT$4.597 billion, or earnings per share of NT$0.30, from a year earlier, while accumulated sales dropped 12.42 percent to NT$176.55 billion, according to the statement.
China Steel last week reported a 61 percent annual decline in its third-quarter net income of NT$1.86 billion after cutting output and product prices.
As CSC already announced it would lower its domestic steel prices by 8.42 percent for this quarter to reflect weakening customer demand, Grand Cathay Investment Services Corp (大華投顧) said it expected the steelmaker to report its lowest profits in a decade for this year, with a net income of NT$5.0 billion, or earnings per share of NT$0.33, down 74.3 percent year-on-year, on revenue of NT$204.5 billion, down 14.9 percent from the previous year.
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