Listed firms don’t fare well due to euro zone

Korean listed firms saw their profits slump in the second quarter, with oil, energy and steel-related companies suffering the most from the euro zone crisis, data showed yesterday.

Of the 69 local listed firms that logged their second-quarter earnings as of Friday, 34 either saw their performance swing to the red or shrink from a year earlier, according to the data by financial information provider FnGuide.

Five of them suffered losses, with top oil refiner SK Innovation losing 105.3 billion won ($92.8 million) and smaller player S-Oil running into the red with 161.2 billion won.

The heavy losses in the energy industry came as China, the largest energy consumer in the world, has seen its economy slump, with a fall in global crude oil prices leading the firms to incur more losses, market experts said.

The nation’s largest steelmaker Posco fared ill, with its operating profit sinking 39 percent on-year, followed by that of Hyundai Steel dipping 20 percent from a year earlier in the April-June period.

Of the tallied companies, 24 percent showed a big disparity between the market consensus and the actual earnings figures. LG U+, Korea’s smallest mobile carrier, topped others with the biggest gap of 78.4 percent as the company said marketing costs for its long-term evolution (LTE) network surged in the second quarter.

In contrast, tech and auto companies outperformed, on the back of strong competitiveness in the global market. Tech behemoth Samsung Electronics posted a record second-quarter operating profit of 6.72 trillion won, spiking 79.2 percent on-year. No. 1 carmaker Hyundai Motor basked in a 17.6 percent increase in its operating profit.

Meanwhile, many analysts have revised down the firms’ earnings forecast for the second half, citing a potential worsening in the euro zone crisis, which will likely further hurt their exports. Yonhap