Arcelor Mittal Q1 Loss Narrows; Backs Full-year EBITDA Goal

(RTTNews) - Steel and mining company ArcelorMittal (MT) Friday said loss for the first quarter narrowed from the previous year, even as sales remained almost unchanged. Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization or EBITDA, a key metric for the steel company, improved year-over-year. The company also backed its full-year EBITDA target.

Lakshmi Mittal, ArcelorMittal Chairman and CEO, said, "Today's figures continue to show the improved year-over-year performance of our business driven by recovering steel markets, the expansion of our mining operations, and the continued benefits of our focused cost optimization.''

Mittal added that the prospects for growth of the company's core markets in Europe and the U.S. are encouraging. Overall, the firm remains cautiously optimistic about the business outlook for the rest of 2014.

Net loss for the quarter was $205 million or $0.12 per basic share, compared with $345 million or $0.21 per basic share of loss last year.

EBITDA was $1.754 billion, up from last year's $1.565 billion. Underlying EBITDA increased 23 percent to $1.8 billion.

Sales remained almost flat with last year at $19.79 billion. Steel shipments improved to 21.0 million metric tonnes from 20.5 million metric tonnes a year ago.

Own iron ore production rose to 14.8 million metric tonnes from 13.1 million metric tonnes.

The NAFTA segment, which includes the Flat, Long and Tubular operations of USA, Canada and Mexico, reported slightly higher sales at $4.93 billion. NAFTA crude steel production decreased, amid lower production in the U.S. Owing to severe weather conditions.

In the Brazil segment, sales totaled $2.356 billion, down over 4 percent from last year, while the Europe segment sales improved slightly.

Sales in the Mining business were $1.256 billion, compared to $1.199 billion last year and the segment's EBITDA remained flat at $433 million.

Looking ahead, ArcelorMittal still projects EBITDA to be around $8.0 billion for 2014, assuming Steel shipments growth of nearly 3 percent in 2014. In addition, the company maintains its medium term net debt target at $15 billion.

For 2014, net interest expense is likely to be nearly $1.6 billion, and capital expenditure to be approximately $3.8 billion - $4.0 billion.

MT closed up 1.3 percent on Thursday at $16.35, but dropped 2.1 percent in the extended trade.