Lotte Chemical shares sink 24pct after Q2 earnings slide

On price-to-book basis, LCTitan

KUALA LUMPUR: Lotte Chemical Titan Holding Bhd share price skidded to a low of RM4.65 on Monday after it posted a weaker set of earnings in the second quarter ended June 30, 2017.

It fell as much as 24.1% to RM4.65 after the midday break when the results were announced.

At 3.45pm, it was down RM1.32 to RM4.81. There were 14.64 million shares done.

The FBM KLCI was down 1.7 points or 0.1% to 1,765.38. Turnover was 1.29 billion shares valued at RM1.18bil. There were 246 gainers, 507 losers and 430 counters unchanged.

Lotte Chemical Titan reported its earnings fell 71.8% to RM113.61mil from the RM404.03mil a year ago. Its revenue declined 11.2% to RM1.77bil from RM1.99bil. Earnings per share were 6.58 sen compared with 23.38 sen a year ago.

Commenting on the results for the Q2, FY17, it said the lower revenue was primarily a result of the decrease in the sales volume due to the decrease in production volume attributable to unplanned water interruption by Syarikat Air Johor (SAJ) in April 2017 and lower sales due to festive holiday in June 2017. 

Partially offsetting the effects of the decrease in sales volume on group revenue was a 19.0% increase in average selling price. 

The lower earnings were mainly due to increase in cost of goods sold by 8.5% arising from high inventory cost carried forward from turnaround activities in Q1, 2017 and also higher unit production cost due to water interruption in April 2017.

“Other factors contributing to the decrease in profit before tax includes the fair value losses on derivatives of RM21.9mil, property, plant and equipment written off of RM20.1mil and share of loss from associate of RM16mil,” it said.

For the first half ended June 30, 2017, its earnings fell 32.5% to RM455.77mil from RM676.20mil in the previous corresponding period. Its revenue fell 7.4% to RM3.69bil from RM3.98bil.