Chilean producers increase profits
Chile’s top three cement producers - Bío Bío, Polpaico and Melón - increased profits during the first nine months of 2006 compared to the same year-ago period, according to separate reports filed with the country’s securities regulator (SVS).
Cementos Bío Bío posted consolidated net profits of 43.0bn pesos (US$81.8m), a 117% jump on the 19.9bn pesos posted in the first nine months of 2005.
Revenues increased 6.1% to 249bn pesos, while operating profit dropped 10.2% to 27.9bn pesos. The sale of two assets in the "forestry area" helped the bottom line by boosting non-operating profits by 25.8bn pesos, the company said.
Cementos Bío Bío is controlled by Chile’s Briones group. In the first nine months of the year it produced 966,163t of cement, up 9.9% from the same period last year, according to cement institute ICH.
Cemento Polpaico increased consolidated net profits 6.1% to 11.4bn pesos compared to 10.7bn pesos in the same period one year before.
Revenues inched up 1.1% to 98.6n pesos, while operating profits came in at 14.7bn pesos, only 0.4% higher than last year.
Polpaico is controlled by Swiss cement company Holcim, which owns 53% of the company’s shares. In January-September the Chilean company produced 1.07Mt of cement, up 4.6% from the same year-before period.
Cemento Melón’s operating profits remained nearly flat at 21.2bn. Revenues were up 2.7% to 126bn pesos.
Net profits were up 6.2% during the first nine months of 2006 to 16.6bn pesos from 15.7bn pesos in the year-ago period.
Cemento Melón is controlled by French company Lafarge and during the first nine months this year produced 1.02Mt of cement, down 1.4% from the same nine months of 2005.
Published under Cement News
