Lihua International Q4 Profit Down - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Lihua International Inc. (LIWA), China based developer, designer, and manufacturer of low cost, high quality alternatives to pure copper products, said that its net income for the fourth quarter of 2013 was $13.2 million, or $0.44 per share, down from $15.8 million, or $0.52 per share, for the fourth quarter of 2012.

Non-GAAP net income for the fourth quarter of 2013 was $13.3 million, or $0.44 per share, compared with non-GAAP net income of $15.9 million, or $0.52 per share, for the fourth quarter of 2012.

Non-GAAP net income excludes the aggregate impact of warrant-related non-cash loss of $0.05 million and $0.1 million in the fourth quarters of 2013 and 2012, respectively.

Sales for the fourth quarter of 2013 were $217.3 million, compared with sales of $254.9 million for the fourth quarter of 2012. The decrease in revenue was primarily due to the suspension of production in December of the copper rod smelter for the maintenance upgrade, and to lower average selling prices for all Lihua products due to the decline in copper prices.

"Given the slowdown in China's economy and current infrastructure spending, we expect modest growth on the top and bottom lines in 2014. We plan to gradually ramp up production and sales of our new higher margin CCA superfine wire product, but we don't expect to see substantial growth from the product in its first full-year. We remain cautiously optimistic about the economic outlook and copper supply and demand dynamics in China," said Jianhua Zhu, founder, chairman and CEO.

The company expects full-year 2014 gross profit and non-GAAP net income to be in the range of $89 million - $91 million and $58 million - $60 million, respectively, representing year-over-year improvement of 3.0%-5.3% and 3.0%-6.6%.