HAMBURG – Aurubis AG, Europe's biggest copper smelter, on Thursday posted a fall in quarterly profit but confirmed its forecast of higher earnings in its current year.
Aurubis said its operating earnings before taxes (EBT) fell 16% to 78-million euros in its fiscal third quarter to end-June, below consensus for 84.1-million euros in a Reuters poll of analysts.
Quarterly sales rose 8% to 2.97-billion euros, compared with consensus for 2.92-billion euros.
"Significant influencing factors for the strong operating result during the reporting period were the good ongoing performance of the Hamburg and Pirdop sites, as well as positive effects from the efficiency improvement programme," it said.
Aurubis confirmed its previous forecast that it expects moderately higher operating EBT for its current 2017/18 fiscal year of between 5.1% and 15
%.
It expected continuing benefits from efficiency programmes.
“We therefore expect our operating result for the fiscal year to be at the upper end of our forecast,” CEO Juergen Schachler said.