Russia’s fourth largest steelmaker Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) saw first half 2012 net profit fall 54 percent year-on-year to $451 million to US GAAP, the firm said in a statement on Thursday.
That was above a consensus forecast of analysts polled by Prime news agency, who expected the company’s first-half net profit to be $448 million.
The company’s revenue grew by 19 percent year-on-year in January-June 2012, to $6.351 billion, while EBITDA was down 27 percent to $1.028 billion, broadly in line with analysts’ expectations of $6.332 billion in revenue and EBITDA at $1.012 billion.
The company’s first-half steel output grew by 27 percent to 7.5 million tons while total steel product sales were up 30 percent to 7.7 million tons.
The company’s net profit grew by 61 percent on the previous quarter to $278 million in April-June 2012, with revenue growing 5 percent to $3.257 billion and EBITDA increasing 38 percent to $596 million.
“In Q2, the market conditions continued to be challenging. Despite the seasonal improvement in demand in the domestic market, mixed trends prevailed in the Group’s sales markets, determined by subdued macroeconomic conditions,” NLMK Chief Financial Officer Galina Aglyamova said.