Gerdau Group’s net profit for 2002 rose by 50%
Brazilian steelmaker Gerdau has announced its profit for year 2002. According to the data released, Group has made consolidated net profits of Real 817.9 million ($227 million) for last year, with an increase of 49.7% when compared to 2001. Operations based in Brazil were forming 80% of the company's net profits, while operations in North America formed %17 and even Argentina, Chile and Uruguay formed 3% of the profits, however combined sales from subsidiaries in these three countries dropped to 351'800ton by 6.4%. Gerdau's net sales reached to Real 9.2 billion in 2002 which is equivalent to an increase of 55.6% or reached up to 9.15 million ton with a 23.8% increase, in terms of volume. Exports from Brazil account for an important amount of total sales with a significant increase of 77%, equivalent to 1.9 million ton. Meanwhile, sales to the domestic market increased by 6% to 3.9 million ton. When compared to 2001 a 58.6% increase is seen in gross profits, amounting to Real 2.6 billion while EBITDA rose up to Real 2.1 billion with 64% increase. Apart from the aforementioned results for the last year, results for Q4 of 2002 show the effects of the merger that took place between Gerdau's North American operations with Canadian Co Steel in October 2002. Together with these new units crude steel production for the whole year increased 30.2% to 9.4 million tons and rolled products reached to 7 million tons with an increase of 16.5% when compared to 2001.