China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s biggest steelmaker, yesterday posted a 1 percent decline in pretax profits because of decreased investment income from subsidiaries.
Pre-tax profits shrank to NT$1.76 billion (US$59.47 million) last month, compared with NT$1.83 billion in July, according to the company’s filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The figure was more than double the NT$712 million in pre-tax profit it made in August last year on a unconsolidated basis, according to a separate filing by the company.
However, operating profit soared 20 percent to NT$1.98 billion last month, from NT$1.65 billion in July, because of a decline in raw material costs, China Steel said.
“We started using lower-priced coal we purchased in the second quarter,” China Steel vice president Steve Lee (李慶超) said by telephone yesterday.
Last month, the company registered revenue of NT$29.1 billion, up 2.9 percent from NT$28.29 billion a year ago and down 1.19 percent from NT$29.45 billion a month ago, according to the filing.
Lee attributed higher revenue last month to an increase in shipments to 754,067 tonnes last month, from 716,000 tonnes in the same month of last year.
The shipment growth offset a decline in average steel price last month to NT$2,000 per tonne, he said.
From January through last month, the company posted revenue of NT$231.71 billion, down 7.17 percent from the NT$249.59 billion posted a year earlier, the filing said.
Yuanta Securities Co (元大證券) forecast China Steel would post a 30.2 percent quarter-on-quarter decline in net profit to NT$3.41 billion this quarter, from NT$4.42 billion last quarter because of rising prices of iron ores, according to its report issued yesterday.
DIVIDED VIEWS: Although the Fed agreed on holding rates steady, some officials see no rate cuts for this year, while 10 policymakers foresee two or more cuts There are a lot of unknowns about the outlook for the economy and interest rates, but US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled at least one thing seems certain: Higher prices are coming. Fed policymakers voted unanimously to hold interest rates steady at a range of 4.25 percent to 4.50 percent for a fourth straight meeting on Wednesday, as they await clarity on whether tariffs would leave a one-time or more lasting mark on inflation. Powell said it is still unclear how much of the bill would fall on the shoulders of consumers, but he expects to learn more about tariffs
Meta Platforms Inc offered US$100 million bonuses to OpenAI employees in an unsuccessful bid to poach the ChatGPT maker’s talent and strengthen its own generative artificial intelligence (AI) teams, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said. Facebook’s parent company — a competitor of OpenAI — also offered “giant” annual salaries exceeding US$100 million to OpenAI staffers, Altman said in an interview on the Uncapped with Jack Altman podcast released on Tuesday. “It is crazy,” Sam Altman told his brother Jack in the interview. “I’m really happy that at least so far none of our best people have decided to take them
NOT JUSTIFIED: The bank’s governor said there would only be a rate cut if inflation falls below 1.5% and economic conditions deteriorate, which have not been detected The central bank yesterday kept its key interest rates unchanged for a fifth consecutive quarter, aligning with market expectations, while slightly lowering its inflation outlook amid signs of cooling price pressures. The move came after the US Federal Reserve held rates steady overnight, despite pressure from US President Donald Trump to cut borrowing costs. Central bank board members unanimously voted to maintain the discount rate at 2 percent, the secured loan rate at 2.375 percent and the overnight lending rate at 4.25 percent. “We consider the policy decision appropriate, although it suggests tightening leaning after factoring in slackening inflation and stable GDP growth,”
PLANS: MSI is also planning to upgrade its service center in the Netherlands Micro-Star International Co (MSI, 微星) yesterday said it plans to set up a server assembly line at its Poland service center this year at the earliest. The computer and peripherals manufacturer expects that the new server assembly line would shorten transportation times in shipments to European countries, a company spokesperson told the Taipei Times by telephone. MSI manufactures motherboards, graphics cards, notebook computers, servers, optical storage devices and communication devices. The company operates plants in Taiwan and China, and runs a global network of service centers. The company is also considering upgrading its service center in the Netherlands into a
RSS