Nippon Steel and JFE Post High Level Profit for April-December

Nippon Steel announced on Tuesday the consolidated recurring profit increased by 72% to 416.7 billion yen in April-December from same period of 2004. The higher steel demand from manufactures and higher steel price lifted the profit. JFE Holdings announced on the day the consolidated recurring profit reached 378.5 billion yen. The firm also kept the high level profit thanks to the strong demand mainly from automobile and better steel price despite of some negative factors including output reduction to reduce overstock of sheet steel. Nippon Steel reported the consolidated operating profit increased by 58.3% to 424.4 billion yen and the net profit increased by 83.6% to 270.1 billion yen with 18.9% higher sales at 2.816 trillion yen in April-December from same period of 2004. The firm said the firm posted 12.2 billion yen of non-recurring gain including 9.4 billion yen from fixed asset sales and 2.7 billion yen from investment securities sales. The steel unit posted 391.4 billion yen of operating profit. The urban development unit posted 6.4 billion yen of operating profit and the chemical, nonferrous unit posted 19.9 billion yen of the profit and system solutions unit posted 6.7 billion yen of the profit while the engineering unit posted 100 million yen of loss. JFE posted 373.6 billion yen of consolidated operating profit and 252.3 billion yen of net profit with 2.165 trillion yen of sales for April-December. The firm posted 3.7 billion yen of non-recurring gain including 19.4 billion yen of gain from investment securities sales, 2.1 billion yen of loss from fixed asset sales, 10.9 billion yen of charge for polychlorinated biphenyl waste treatment and 2.5 billion yen of surcharge. The steel unit posted 381.3 billion yen of operating profit. The urban development unit posted 100 million yen of operating profit and the large scale integration unit posted 1.6 billion yen of the profit while the engineering unit, of which sales concentrates in January-March seasonally, posted 10.1 billion yen of loss.