Lotte Chemical on track to be top-tier Asean petchem firm

Lotte Chemical Titan Holding Bhd’s vision to become a top-tier petrochemical company in the Southeast Asia region by 2024 remains intact, despite the current market turbulence.

In a statement issued after the company’s virtual annual general meeting today, it said this vision would be achieved through continuous business enhancement as well as being constantly on the lookout for new value-accretive business development and expansion opportunities.

It said maintaining strong financial resilience remained the pivotal factor for business sustainability during this critical period, while its healthy balance sheet and net cash-zero debt position with more than RM4 billion of cash would enable the company to better manage the expected market volatilities.

“Arising from the business volatility due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the company is also undertaking a strategic review on the timing and progress of the Indonesia LINE project and the company expects to update the market in due course.

“This will also be further bolstered by the strong support from its parent company, LOTTE Chemical Corporation, which is committed to supporting the company’s continuous growth in the Southeast Asia region,” it said.

For the first half of 2020, the company said that demand and sales were sluggish due to the global lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and slowing of global economic activities.

Nevertheless, business activities should begin to gradually normalise and improve for the second half of 2020, as it expects lifting of major lockdowns worldwide starting from the third quarter of the year.

For the financial year ended Dec 31, 2019, the company registered sales revenue of RM8.44 billion and profit after tax stood at RM442.6 million.

On the back of satisfactory performance for 2019, it paid a dividend of 7 sen per share, which amounted to about RM161 million distributable dividend to its shareholders.

Source: Bernama