Nippon Steel swings into quarterly loss
Nippon Steel Corp. said Friday that it swung into a net loss in the April-June quarter, squeezed by a restructuring charge related to its acquisition of United States Steel Corp.
The Japanese steelmaker posted a consolidated net loss of 195.8 billion yen for the fiscal first quarter, against the year-before profit of 157.5 billion yen.
Nippon Steel's sales fell 8.3 pct to 2,008.7 billion yen, while its business profit dropped 61.2 pct to 92 billion yen.
The company booked a restructuring charge of about 230 billion yen related to the dissolution of a joint venture with ArcelorMittal, a step designed to allay competition concerns over the takeover of US Steel.
The acquisition of US Steel in June is expected to contribute to the Japanese steelmaker's earnings starting in July.
For the year ending in March 2026, Nippon Steel expects record sales of 10 trillion yen. It raised its business profit forecast to 480 billion yen from 400 billion yen.
Still, the company is braced for a net loss of 40 billion yen, compared with the previous projection of 200 billion yen in profit.
Nippon Steel Vice Chairman Takahiro Mori told a press conference in Tokyo that the US Steel takeover is set to boost profits by about 80 billion yen in the year.
US Steel will contribute about 250 billion yen to profits in the year ending in March 2029, following updates to production facilities, he said. "There will be a considerable effect just by transferring our technology" to US Steel, he said.
Nippon Steel also said it will take full control of Krosaki Harima Corp., a subsidiary that manufactures refractory bricks.
[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
