Shares of Aluminum Corp of China, the country’s largest producer of the metal, fell 4.1 per cent to HK$3.31 on Friday morning after it posted a worse-than-expected 4.12 billion yuan net loss for the first half of the year.
Second-quarter net loss amounted to 1.97 billion yuan (HK$2.5 billion) after a first-quarter loss of 2.16 billion yuan. The firm suffered a net loss of 596 million yuan in the first half of last year.
Barclays’ analysts said in a note that the first-half loss amounted to about 90 per cent of the full-year loss the bank has forecast.
“Lower-than-expected cost optimisation and continued increase in net finance cost are the key reasons,” the note said.
Chalco will continue to operate in a manner that would not maximise shareholder value
The second-quarter loss was also 26 per cent higher than that estimated by Sanford Bernstein senior analyst Vanessa Lau.