Dowa Holdings Enjoys Much Profit Increase in 1H

Dowa Holdings announced on Monday the firm posted 23.918 billion yen of consolidated recurring profit in first half of fiscal 2006 ending March 2007, which increased by 64% from the same period of fiscal 2005. The firm enjoyed favorable profits thanks to surge of nonferrous metal prices including copper, zinc, gold and silver and sales increase for electronic materials and rolled copper products. The firm also gained profits from the offshore zinc mine.Dowa Holdings posted 217.683 billion yen of consolidated net sales in 1H of fiscal 2006, increasing by 55.6% or 77.8 billion yen from the same period of fiscal 2005. Surge of nonferrous metal prices pushed up the sales by 66 billion yen, 37 billion yen of which was from copper, 18 billion yen from zinc and 11 billion yen from other metals including gold, silver and lead. The firm gained 217.683 billion yen of consolidated operating profit in 1H of fiscal 2006, increasing by 30.8% from 1H of fiscal 2005, and 13.864 billion yen of net profit which expanded to 2.9 times.Sales and profits increased for all of 5 business segments in 1H of fiscal 2006 from the same period of fiscal 2005. Sales and profits increased for nonferrous metals segment thanks to surge of metal prices and favorable sales of copper, gold, silver and platinum metals. The segment also gained more than 500 million yen of recurring profit increase from Minera Tizapa, the zinc mining affiliate in Mexico.Dowa Holdings contracted more waste disposal from chemical and electric industries at the environmental management & recycling segment in 1H of fiscal 2006 from the same period of fiscal 2005. Soil treatment contracts also increased thanks to active approaches to customers. Recycling volume of precious metals increased as well.