Jinhui Holdings and its dry cargo subsidiary Jinhui Shipping and Transportation warned yesterday that their first-quarter net profits would be significantly worse than in the first quarter last year.
Jinhui Shipping, which is 54.77 per cent owned by Jinhui Holdings, saw its share price slump by 12 per cent in morning trade when the Oslo-listed firm announced the profit warning to the Oslo Bors yesterday morning. Jinhui Holdings issued a similar profit warning just before the Hong Kong stock exchange closed yesterday, but the firm's stock price ended the day unchanged.
Jinhui Shipping reported a net profit of US$35.67 million in the first three months of last year, slightly higher than the first quarter of 2010.
But chairman Ng Siu-fai said the company expected 'to record a significant decline in its consolidated net profit' between January and March this year.
He added that as the Jinhui Holdings results were largely attributable to those from Jinhui Shipping, group revenue and profit 'were expected to be substantially worse' in the first quarter this year than a year earlier.
This came after Jinhui Shipping had to 'enter into some loss-making charter contracts in early 2012' as ships finished existing charters.