11.10.2005
In the first eight months of this year VÍTKOVICE STEEL generated a pre-tax profit of 2 046 024 thousand CZK. This value is more than three times higher than the same period last year with a pre-tax profit 634 455 thousand CZK. Sales from own products are also very positive – in the first eight months sales increased by 27.6 %, to 10 223 106 thousand crowns compared with the last year.
„Although after the period of boom, the steel industry has been currently passing through a mild recession, the top management of VÍTKOVICE STEEL makes maximum effort to achieve good results also in the second half of this year in which the situation on the market is getting much tougher,“ said Dr. Ing. Jiří Chuchro, member of BOD and CFO in VÍTKOVICE STEEL, a.s. „From the profit figures it is clear that we were not significantly affected by the recession in sale of steel products. One of the reasons are lucrative job orders for supplies of special high grade steel plates. And these lucrative job orders helped us to partially compensate the slight drop in supplies of long products, mainly beams, which is connected with this global recession,“ added J. Chuchro.
The success and development of VÍTKOVICE STEEL is evidenced also by growing value added, which increased by more than 120 %, from 1 250 123 thousand CZK for the first eight months last year to 2 756 606 thousand CZK for the same period this year. At the same time, production and sale of steel, plates, long products and cut shapes was ensured by 1 603 employees, which figure is lower by 46 employees compared with the same period in 2004.
VÍTKOVICE STEEL, whose 99 percent shareholding in the basic capital was owned by OSINEK since 2002 was the last Czech Government-owned steel company. On Wednesday, July 13, 2005, the Czech Government decided to sell the 99 percent shareholding in VÍTKOVICE STEEL a Russian group Evraz Holding, which offered 7.05 billion crowns for the company. Another 2.5 billion crowns the firm promised to invest to the development of the company and 800 million to the development of the region.
Currently, VÍTKOVICE STEEL is employing some 1 600 people, of which some 1200 in the key shops – some 400 in the steel shop, 800 in the rolling mills. This Ostrava-based company produces steel and rolled products (heavy plates, heavy and medium sections, cut shapes). In the Czech Republic the company is a dominant producer of heavy plates. The perspective product mix is completed by sheet piles. On the domestic market, VÍTKOVICE STEEL is an exclusive manufacturer of sheet piles and part of their production is exported.
