Hyundai Heavy Turns to Black in Q3
South Korean shipyard Hyundai Heavy Industries emerged from the third quarter with a black bottom line, although with a smaller profit than in the previous quarter, thanks in part to reduced costs and improvement in its non-shipbuilding business.
Revenue fell by nearly one fifth during the period. Net income came to 334 billion won (US$295 million) in the July-September period on a consolidation basis, a turnaround from a loss of 618 billion won a year earlier.
Hyundai announced in a regulatory filing that its operating profit came at 321.8 billion won on sales of 8.8 trillion won, a sharp turnaround from a year ago when it reported an operating loss of 897.7 billion despite sales of 10.9 trillion won.
Eased burden from costs and an improvement in its non-shipbuilding business was cited as factors that boosted its third-quarter earnings.
Cumulative operating income for the first three quarters was 1.2 trillion won, raising expectations that the company would return to profit in operating income for full year 2016 for the first time in three years.
Hyundai continued to improve profitability in its shipbuilding division by securing orders to build more profitable vessels. Its offshore and engineering business was also in the black thanks to eased glut of shipyard capacity.
