LJUBLJANA (Slovenia), May 16 (SeeNews) – Slovenian chemicals producer Cinkarna Celje [LJE:CICG] said on Wednesday its net profit soared to 13.04 million euro ($15.5 million) in the first quarter of 2018, from 7.0 million euro in the same period of the previous year.
Net sales revenue rose 17% on the year to 52.5 million euro in January-March, with sales abroad up 19% to 45.8 million euro, the company said in an interim financial statement filed with the Ljubljana bourse.
Operating profit grew 92% to 16.4 million euro.
In June last year, Slovenia's ‘bad bank’, the Bank Assets Management Company (DUTB), cancelled the sale of Cinkarna Celje due to an inadequate response from potential buyers.
Prior to that, in August 2015, Slovenia's sovereign holding company SDH said the consortium of sellers has cancelled the sale of a 70.8% stake in Cinkarna Celje as the submitted bids fell short of expectations.
During the proceedings, important environmental issues emerged which had a strong impact on the competitiveness of the procedure and the number of tenders received, SDH said at the time. It pledged to look for solutions that would eliminate the identified issues and allow the sale of shares under better conditions.
Cinkarna Celje is one of the 15 enterprises slated for privatisation by the Slovenian government in 2013.
The company was established in 1873. Its core business is the production and marketing of titanium dioxide pigment.
($=0.843967 euro)