Furukawa Electric to Double Operating Profit by F2009

Furukawa Electric announced on Wednesday the firm targets 70 billion yen of consolidated operating profit for fiscal 2009 ending March 2010 compared with estimated 34 billion yen for fiscal 2005 under the new 4-year plan starting April 2006. The firm increases the sales from 850 billion yen to 1 trillion yen by developing 110 billion yen of new market for 4 areas including automobile, electronics, photonics network and environment. The firm also increases the offshore sales to 35% of total sales in fiscal 2009 from estimated 26% in fiscal 2005.

The firm increases the sales by 40 billion yen for automotive products including airbag connector, aluminium compressor wheel, antenna and heat resistance enameled wire by fiscal 2009 from fiscal 2005. The firm increases the sales by 30 billion yen for electronic components including aluminium substrate for hard disc, heat sink, semiconductor tape and electrolytic copper foil. The firm also increases the sales by 15 billion yen for photonics network and by 25 billion yen for environmental products including ecological electric wire.

The firm increases the offshore sales to 350 billion yen in fiscal 2009 from estimated 220 billion yen in fiscal 2005. The sales in Asia will increase from 160 billion yen to 240 billion yen.

The firm expends 150 billion yen for the 4 years. The firm plans to expend 49.8 billion yen for fiscal 2006 including 21.3 billion yen for light metal, 8.5 billion yen for electronics, 5.9 billion yen for energy and industrial materials, 5.8 billion yen for metals and 4.1 billion yen for communication. The firm utilizes the 20 billion yen of strategic finance, which the firm financed by equity finance in March 2005, to increase the operating profit by 5 billion yen with 33 billion yen of higher sales in the 4 years by investing automotive business.

The firm improves the financial position. The firm reduces the holding of inventory assets to 1 month at the end of fiscal 2009 from estimated 1.5 months at the end of fiscal 2005. The firm increases the sales to total assets ratio to 1 from 0.8. The firm reduces the debt equity ratio to 1.3 from 2.0. The firm also improves the group management through consolidation of domestic and offshore operations and withdrawal from non-core business.