Q2 net profit slips on higher costs

KUALA LUMPUR: Lotte Chemical Titan Holding Bhd’s net profit slumped 72 per cent year-onyear in the second quarter ended June 30.

The news pushed its share price down 23.33 per cent to RM4.70 yesterday.

Since its July 11 debut on Bursa Malaysia at RM6.50 per share, the counter has lost as much as 14.31 per cent.

The company’s second-quarter net profit dropped to RM113.62 million from RM404.03 million in the same quarter last year, on high inventory cost carried forward from turnaround activities in the previous quarter and higher unit production cost due to water interruption in April.

Revenue dipped 11 per cent year-on-year to RM1.78 billion from RM2 billion on lower sales volume in the period, said the company in a filing to Bursa Malaysia yesterday.

For the first half of this year, its net profit was down 33 per cent year-on-year to RM455.77 million from RM676.2 million previously.

Group revenue declined seven per cent to RM3.69 billion from RM3.99 billion.

The company said an unplanned water interruption by a state water concessionaire in April had resulted in its plants being shut down for between two and 11 days.

“Although operations were restarted within two days on a staggered basis, production volume was affected by about 75 kilotonnes,” it said in a statement.

The Hari Raya festive season also impacted total sales as heavy vehicles were banned from major highways in Malaysia and Indonesia for up to two weeks and deliveries had to be delayed, it added. Zarina Zakariah