Nippon Steel and Nisshin Steel to Post Lower Profits for F2007

Nippon Steel announced on Thursday its consolidated recurring profit would decrease by 6% to 560 billion yen for the business year ending March 2008 from a year earlier. The estimated profit would be 40 billion yen lower than original outlook and represent year-to-year down for the first time in 6 years. A negative factor is cost expansion for ferrous scrap, freight, oil and coal.The firm prospects the margin between product selling prices and material costs is estimated to shrink by around 55 billion yen in F2007 ending March 2008 from the previous fiscal year. However, the firm plans to increase dividend by 1 yen to 11 yen per share when the profit even keeps high level and its financial condition is improved.Nippon Steel forecasts the consolidated revenue would increase by 12% to 4.8 trillion yen for F2007 from F2006. The sales would be 50 billion yen higher than original outlook and hit the new record thanks to sales growth mainly for high-value-added steel products and higher selling prices.Steel product shipment of the parent company would be about 32.9 million tonnes in F2007, up by 4% from F2006. Averaged selling price of the products would improve to around 80,000 yen per tonne through F2007, up by 4,700 yen from F2006 and exceeding 80,000 yen for the first time since F1992.Nisshin Steel announced on Thursday its consolidated recurring profit is estimated to decrease by 15% to 5.3 billion yen for F2007 from F2006, 6 billion yen lower than original outlook. Higher oil price impacted the profitability while group companies post worse profits such as Chinese cold rolling stainless steel mill or Japanese building material maker.Nisshin Steel expects its consolidated revenue would increase by 2% to 655 billion yen through F2007 from F2006. The latest estimation is 15 billion yen lower than original outlook since product selling prices declined to reflect lower nickel price. The firm estimates its consolidated net profit would down by 19% to 30 billion yen through F2007 from F2006, 3 billion yen lower than original outlook.Stainless steel unit would post non-consolidated revenue at 22.5 billion yen and recurring profit at 34 billion yen through F2007. The sales would increase by 13% and the profit by 6% year-on-year, while the sales would be 10 billion yen lower and the profit be 2 billion yen lower than original estimations.The firm schedules to increase dividend by 3 yen to 10 yen per share through F2007 from F2006.