DSME reports a 5.5 trillion won loss

Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) announced on Monday that it suffered a 5.5051 trillion won ($4.57 billion) operating loss last year, the worst in the shipbuilder’s history.

The company also reported 12.9743 trillion won in revenue, a 22.7 percent drop from a year earlier, and a net loss of 5.1324 trillion won, mainly due to difficulties in the offshore plant business.

The company said the figures don’t include additional profits it made from some offshore plant projects overseas, as the clients haven’t paid the project money yet.

The company also said the figures include about 400 billion won of additional losses that could be generated in shutting down unnecessary businesses. Since last year, DSME has been involved in large-scale restructuring, including firing dozens of executives and selling properties to overcome its financial problems.

The shipbuilder said their balance sheets will improve from the first quarter of this year, since it reflected most of its losses last year.

“We made some losses again in the fourth quarter, but the amount of it wasn’t much different from the amount that our creditors have checked,” the company said in a statement. “We think the overall numbers will get better this quarter.”

In the fourth quarter, the company experienced a 973.3 billion won operating loss.

BY KWON SANG-SOO [kwon.sangsoo@joongang.co.kr]