Hoa Phat (HPG) announces largest quarterly profit
Hoa Phat (HPG) announces largest quarterly profit
Local steelmaker Hoa Phat Group announced its highest-ever quarterly profit in the second quarter of this year when after-tax profit hit VND2.7 trillion (US$115.6 million), up 32 per cent from the same period last year. 
The group's chairman Tran Dinh Long told the company's shareholders at the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders in 2020 in Ha Noi on Thursday: “Despite social distancing, the profit in the second quarter is the highest quarterly profit in Hoa Phat's history.”
Long said the accumulated profit after-tax profit of the first six months reached VND5 trillion, up 29.5 per cent from the same period last year.
Long suggested paying a 20 per cent dividend made up of both cash and shares.
Tran Tuan Duong, general director of the company said through the sale of construction steel could not reach the annual goal, shareholders should not worry too much about.
"Though the total consumption of construction steel decreased by 5 per cent nationwide, sales in Hoa Phat increased by 10 per cent," he said.
"Hoa Phat accounted for between 30 per cent and 35 per cent in the northern market while its southern market shares doubled from last year," Duong added.
Duong said although the output of construction steel decreased in Viet Nam, the company’s export billets sharply increased and contributed greatly to the profit.
Chairman Long said: “While the local economy was affected by the COVID-19 but as a new industrial country, the Government was still focusing on public infrastructure and as a result, the steel industry was not influenced as seriously as other industries."
Long said the company was expecting to launch its first batch of commercial hot-rolled coil (HRC) in September and believed the products would bring lots of profit.
“While Hoa Phat could annually produce about 3 million tonnes of HRC with full capacity, Viet Nam consumes 11 million tonnes of HRC in 2019," Long said, adding, “the demand is much bigger than total supply so there is no difficulty in consumption of HRC."
Except for steel production, thanks to increasing prices of pork, the contribution of the agriculture segment of the company in the second quarter accounted for about 10-12 per cent of the company’s total profit.
On Thursday, Hoa Phat shares (HPG) grew 0.35 per cent to close at VND27,350 on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange
