Commodities & Metals

ArcelorMittal Earnings Push Stock Price Within Reach of New High

arcelormittal-furnace-crop
courtesy of ArcelorMittal
ArcelorMittal (NYSE: MT) reported fourth-quarter and full-year 2013 results before markets opened Friday. For the quarter, the mining and steel-making giant posted a basic and diluted earnings per share (EPS) loss of $0.69 on revenues of $19.85 billion. In the same period a year ago, the company reported an EPS loss of $2.47 on revenues of $19.31 billion.

For the full year, the company posted an EPS loss of $1.46 on revenues of $79.44 billion compared with a loss of $2.17 per share on revenues of $84.21 billion in 2012. The consensus estimates for the Luxembourg-based firm that called for an EPS loss of $0.58 on revenues of $80.29 billion are based on a single analyst’s opinion.

ArcelorMittal posted EBITDA of $1.91 billion in the fourth quarter, beating an estimate from a FactSet poll of 10 analysts. Full-year EBITDA totaled $6.9 billion, nearly 11% higher than expected.

The company took $444 million in impairment charges and $552 million in restructuring charges in 2013, far less than the more than $5 billion in one-time charges posted in 2012.

The company guided 2014 EBITDA to approximately $8 billion and forecast steel shipments would rise 3%, compared with 2013’s total of 84.3 million metric tons. Iron ore shipments are forecast to rise by 15% compared, with the 2013 total of 35.1 million metric tons at an average price per metric ton of $120.

The company’s CEO said:

The improvement in the overall economic situation led us to re-start some selected steel growth projects. In addition, we have expanded our ability to serve the growing NAFTA automotive and energy steel markets through our agreement to acquire ThyssenKrupp`s rolling mill in Calvert, Alabama. We are cautiously optimistic about the outlook for 2014 and expect EBITDA for the full year to improve to approximately $8.0 billion.

ArcelorMittal shares were trading up about 2.4% to $17.45 in Friday’s premarket. The stock’s 52-week range is $10.83 to $17.92. The consensus target price for the shares was around $19.90 before this report.

Take This Retirement Quiz To Get Matched With An Advisor Now (Sponsored)

Are you ready for retirement? Planning for retirement can be overwhelming, that’s why it could be a good idea to speak to a fiduciary financial advisor about your goals today.

Start by taking this retirement quiz right here from SmartAsset that will match you with up to 3 financial advisors that serve your area and beyond in 5 minutes. Smart Asset is now matching over 50,000 people a month.

Click here now to get started.

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.