Czech Rep Synthesia Q1 op profits up 31% to Koruna102m

12 May 2000 16:40  [Source: ICIS news]

PRAGUE (CNI)--Growing exports boosted Czech chemical producer Synthesia's first quarter operating profits to Koruna102.3m ($2.5m/Euro 2.8m), a 31% rise over the corresponding period last year.

The chemical refinery, a division of Czech joint stock company Aliachem, saw Q1 sales rise by 23% year on year, to almost Koruna1.38bn

Exports accounted for two-thirds of revenues, a slight rise on the corresponding period of the previous year. Germany followed by Italy, France, US and Poland were the main markets.

The launch of the company's new Synferta N22 fertiliser, with a higher nitrogen content, helped boost sales.

Aliachem was formed by the merger of five divisions of Chemapol, which was declared bankrupt in January 1999. Its division Synthesia in Pardubice, east Bohemia, focuses on the production of a wide range of inorganic and organic chemicals, plastics, organic dyestuffs and pigments as well as industrial explosives, agro-chemicals and pharmaceutical substances.

Spokesman Ales Mokren said that significant changes in the company's infrastructure and reorganisation and better concentration of its activities as well as increased productivity and reduction in employees had turned 1998's Koruna500m loss into a Koruna70m profit last year.

Mokren said that the company was optimistic about the future. "We believe that we will maintain our current trend," he said.

The AliaChem group, which apart from Synthesia contains Fatra, Technoplast, FSG Zlin and Moravske Chemicke Zavody Ostrava (MCHZ), is expected to be sold over the next several months. In April, Hungary's BorsodChem entered a joint venture with aniline producer MCHZ to help with its MDI production. More acquisitions from foreign investors are expected as bankruptcy administrators and some 10 creditor banks continue to restructure Aliachem.

Alexandr Vacek, the administrator dealing with the bankruptcy of Chemapol, aims to complete Chemapol bankruptcy proceedings this summer (Q2/3).

By: Katka Krosnar
+44 20 8652 3214

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