Lotte Chemical net profit jumps 94% in first quarter

Lotte Chemical Vice President Kim Gyo-hyun talks at a press conference last year. [YONHAP]

Lotte Chemical's net profit jumped 94 percent in the first quarter on stabilized raw material prices.

The Korean chemical company reported 226.7 billion won ($170 million) in net profit during the January-to-March period, up 94.4 percent on year. It significantly beat the market consensus of 81.7 billion won of losses compiled by FnGuide.

It swung to an operating loss of 26.2 billion won compared to 56.5 billion in operating profit in the same quarter last year. But it still overshot the market estimate of 148.8 billion won of operating loss.

Quarterly revenues fell 9.5 percent to 4.9 trillion won, falling short of analyst expectations of 5.6 trillion won.

The company attributed the "stabilization of raw materials prices," and "improved market condition" to the better-than-expected performances.

The basic chemicals business, which was once the company's cash cow, logged 2.8 trillion won of sales and 28.5 billion won of operating profit.

The company's advanced materials division reported 1.05 trillion won in sales with 45.5 billion won of operating profit.

The company added that it estimates that profitability will be improved in the second quarter as market conditions will likely improve further.

"Lotte Chemical is constantly expanding our portfolio by entering the materials business in earnest and expanding global networks for our hydrogen business," the company said in a release.

Lotte Chemical in March acquired 53.3 percent of Iljin Materials, a copper foil manufacturer, for 2.7 trillion won. Iljin Materials recently rebranded itself as Lotte Energy Materials.

BY SARAH CHEA [chea.sarah@joongang.co.kr]