JFE Holdings Increases Consolidated Recurring Profit by 2.4 Times in F2010

JFE Holdings announced on Thursday consolidated recurring profit increased by 2.4 times to 165.8 billion yen and net profit by 28.4% to 58.6 billion yen for the business year ending in March 2011 from last year. The recurring profit was lower than previous forecast at 170 billion yen in the last half of January. The net profit was lower than the forecast down by 70 billion yen when the firm booked extraordinary loss at 28.3 billion yen for repair of equipment after disaster of mega earthquake. The firm left year-end dividend unchanged at 15 yen per share at ended March 2011 from the forecast, while increases by 15 yen to 35 yen for full business year from last year. The firm didn’t announce forecast of account settlement for the business year ending in March 2012. Mr. Yoshio Ishikawa, vice president of JFE Holdings, said it is hard to calculate forecast of account settlement for the business year ending in March 2012 when the firm is continuing price negotiation with users and can’t estimate impact to demand by mega earthquake.

Recurring profit increased to 134.2 billion yen from 32.3 billion yen for steel business for the business year ending in March 2011 from last year, while decreased to 12.2 billion yen from 13.3 billion yen for engineering business and to 17.1 billion yen from 21.5 billion yen for shipbuilding business, and was 1.6 billion yen for LSI business which is production of semiconductor. Urban development business was red at 700 million yen.

Steel business increased recurring profit by 101.9 billion yen when consolidated crude steel increased to 31.47 million tonnes from 28.35 million tonnes for good demand for domestic manufacturing industry and for overseas market in fiscal 2010 from 2009 and selling price rose, but margin decreased when raw material cost increased by 33 billion yen while effect for price by rising selling price was 230 billion yen when the firm couldn’t catch up with rising raw material price every quarter. The firm forecasted recurring profit of steel business was 140 billion yen in the last half of January.