Nippon Steel announced on Friday the firm posted 143 billion yen of consolidated recurring profit for fiscal 2011 ended March 2012, which was 36.8% lower than fiscal 2010 level. The parent company’s lower profit impacted on the consolidated results due to higher cost and lower steel price improvement. The consolidated profit was higher than 120 billion yen of former outlook due to better production and yen rate. The net profit was 58.4 billion yen, which was 37.3% lower than fiscal 2010 level but better than former zero outlook.
The firm expects 1 yen per share dividend for fiscal 2011 end. The firm announces annual target for fiscal 2012 after the firm merges with Sumitomo Metal Industries in October 2012. The steel unit posted 98.8 billion yen of recurring profit for fiscal 2011 compared with 181.9 billion yen profit in fiscal 2010. Other units posted 47.3 billion yen of profit compared with 50.6 billion yen. The steel business suffered from more than 160 billion yen lower margin due to higher raw materials cost despite of marginal steel price increase. The parent company’s recurring profit decreased by 70% to 23.6 billion yen. The firm tries to improve the margin for fiscal 2012 while the firm targets around 100 billion yen of cost reduction as fiscal 2011. The firm plants 7.5-7.6 million tonnes of raw steel output for the parent company and higher in July-September compared with 7.39 million tonnes in January-March. The firm posted 22.9 billion yen of onetime loss for fiscal 2011. The firm posted 7.4 billion yen of impairment loss for shutout facilities including 3 galvanizing lines at Kimitsu and Nagoya works. See attached table.
