Nippon Steel Corp.'s group net loss widened to 51.69 billion yen in the 2002 business year, up from 28.40 billion yen the previous year, due to restructuring-related losses and appraisal losses on land and stockholdings.
Net loss per share was 7.70 yen, against 4.17 yen per share the previous year, the nation's biggest steel company said Friday.
Nippon Steel blamed the net loss on 45.4 billion yen in valuation losses on shareholdings, mainly those in banks, 40 billion yen in valuation losses on land assets held by subsidiaries and 19.1 billion yen in restructuring-related losses.
The restructuring losses mainly involved chemical subsidiary Nippon Steel Chemical Co.
Nippon Steel said it booked a one-time gain of 26.3 billion yen from the sale of shares in its computer software developing subsidiary, but it was not enough to offset the one-time losses.
Group pretax profit surged 311.3 percent to 68.88 billion yen on the strength of a pickup in steel product prices at home, strong demand from China and other East Asian markets and cost-reduction efforts.
Group sales rose 6.5 percent to 2.75 trillion yen.
For the current business year, Nippon Steel expects a group net profit of 70 billion yen and a group pretax profit of 140 billion yen on sales of 2.80 trillion yen.