Under the stewardship of Chairman Kwon Oh-joon, POSCO Group, only recently emerging from restructuring, is back on track. The group returned to the 60 trillion won sales territory last year for the first time in three years. POSCO also posted 4.6 trillion won in operating profit in 2017, the best in six years.
POSCO’s charming performance was owed to deep restructuring efforts under the stewardship of Chairman Kwon since his inauguration in 2014.
In an IR session for Korean and foreign investors on Jan. 24, POSCO said the company chalked up 15.594 trillion won in sales, 152 billion won in operating profit and 559.9 billion won in net profit in its consolidated financial statement for the fourth quarter of last year. The figures represented a 3.9 percent rise, a 144 percent surge, and a 3,986 percent jump over the same period in the previous year, respectively.
The financial statement for the whole of 2017 showed that POSCO posted 60.65 trillion won in sales, 4.62 trillion won in operating profit, and 2.97 trillion won in net profit.
In particular, POSCO saw its operating profit for the whole of 2017 achieve the best performance since 2011 thanks to better results in Korean and foreign metal and non-metal businesses.
POSCO logged a 14.3 percent increase in sales for all of 2017, a 62.5 percent surge in operating profit, and a 183.7 percent jump in net profit compared to the previous year. The operating profit in the non-mental business sector, which stood at a meager 10 billion won in 2016, surged to 1.09 trillion won in 2017, riding on the construction business’s turning to a profit, and the proving of profits in such sectors as trading, energy, I/CT and chemical/substance.
A surge in the operating profit of its steel business was owed to expanding world premium steel products and overseas steel operations’ improved business performances. Kratakau POSCO, POSCO’s first Southeast Asian integrated steelworks in Indonesia, posted its first profit since its operation in 2014, while POSCO Mexico and POSCO Maharashutra chalked up the best-ever operating profit since their operation, tripling the operating profit in the overseas steel business.
In a separate financial statement, POSPO reported a 17.4 percent jump to 28.55 trillion won in sales and a 10.1 surge to 2.90 trillion won in operating profit in 2017, compared to the previous year.
The repair and upgrade of the Pohang Steelworks’ 3rd furnace resulted in a reduction in year-on-year production and steel sales, but the portion of POSCO’s world premium steel products rose to 53.4 percent, the most ever, contributed to a higher operating profit, a POSCO official said.
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