ArcelorMittal Q4 Loss Narrows, EBITDA Up - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Steel giant ArcelorMittal (MT) Friday reported a narrower loss for the fourth quarter, amid increased sales and higher Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization.

Net loss for the quarter narrowed to $1.227 billion from $3.808 billion in the prior year. Loss per basic share was $0.69, compared to $2.47 last year. The latest results included exceptional items totaling $1.3 billion.

Sales increased to $19.848 billion from last year's $19.309 billion.

Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization, or EBITDA, improved to $1.910 billion from $1.557 billion in the prior year.

Steel shipments for the quarter rose to 20.9 million metric tonnes from 20.0 million metric tonnes.

Further, ArcelorMittal's Board of Directors proposed to maintain the annual dividend payment at $0.20 per share for 2014.

Looking ahead, the company expects 2014 EBITDA of $8 billion.

Lakshmi Mittal, ArcelorMittal Chairman and CEO, said, "The measures we have implemented to strengthen the business continue to yield positive results...We are cautiously optimistic about the outlook for 2014 and expect EBITDA for the full year to improve to approximately $8.0 billion."