Kureha Corp profits rise 22% on healthy demand

09 May 2007 11:38  [Source: ICIS news]

TOKYO (ICIS news)--Kureha Corp posted a 22% rise in its fiscal 2006 operating income compared with the year ago on healthy demand for chemicals for automotive, electric and electronics applications, the diversified Japanese chemicals firm said on Wednesday.

 

The company forecast its consolidated operating income for the full year 2007, ending 31 March 2008, to reach yen (Y)13.5bn ($113m) and net sales to rise 6% to Y155bn.

 

Consolidated operating profit for the 2006 full year ended 31 March 2007 was Y11.8bn, up from Y9.7bn a year earlier, net sales increased 7.8% to Y146.3bn from Y135.6bn and net income rose 12.8% to Y5.8bn from Y5.2bn.

 

In the functional materials segment, both sales and earnings of polyphenylene sulphide (PPS) resin increased due to capacity expansions responding to the growth of demand for automotive, electric and electronic materials applications despite a fire at the Iwaki plant in Fukushima prefecture in September 2006, the company said.

 

As a result, full-year operating income for the segment rose 8.6% to Y4.3bn from Y3.9bn in the previous year, while net sales increased 11.2% to Y35.1bn from Y31.6bn.

 

In the chemicals segment, exports of its Metconazole fungicide decreased, while product prices for its chlorobenzene and related products were weak, particularly for exports, Kureha said.

 

However, the firm managed to pass on high feedstock costs for inorganic chemicals such as caustic soda and hydrochloric acid. As a result, the chemicals segment’s full-year operating income fell 4.1% to Y3.3bn from Y3.5bn in the year-ago period, while net sales rose 2.4% to Y30.5bn from Y31.3bn.  

 

Kureha aimed to continue to shift the high cost of feedstocks for industrial chemicals to product prices this year and to overcome a tough situation in the industrial-use food packaging materials business in Japan, the company added.

 

($1 = Y120)

By: Tomomi Yokomura
+65 6780 4359

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