Impressive profits posted by MSC
Company undeterred by low tin prices
By Aida Ahmad
- New Straits Times 30th July, 2003

Despite the downturn in the global tin industry last year, Malaysia Smelting Corporation Berhad (MSC) managed to post impressive profits.

The international custom smelter's pre-tax profit increased by 22.6 per cent to a new high of RM33.7 million.

Correspondingly, MSC's group profit after tax increased by 20.5 per cent to RM23.296 million from RM10.328 million in 2000.

"Despite the 17 per cent decline in average world tin prices, MSC's turnover increased slightly by 1.3 per cent to RM 582.646 million due to the higher volume of production and physical trading of tin metal during the year," MSC chief executive director Datuk Mohd Ajib Anuar said after the company's AGM in Penang yesterday.

MSC produced 30,371 tonnes of tin metal and tin products last year, up 16 per cent from 26,182 tonnes in 2000. MSC's profits were also due to its good business in international markets, Mohd Ajib said.

He said demand for tin was particularly affected by the downturn in the electronics industry and of the US economy after Sept 11 attacks.

He said the company had also moved into upstream tin mining activities via the acquisition of Indonesian tin mining and smelting company PT Koba Tin for US$14 million (RM53.2 million) on April 9.

"MSC and Koba Tin will have a combined smelting capacity of about 45,000 tonnes of tin metal annually, making the group a major producer of tin metal and tin-based products contributing to about 20 per cent of world production.

"However, the group will unlikely be producing the full capacity level this year.

"This is in order to achieve some stability in the world tin market, which saw tin prices plummeting to a low of about $3,700 in the second half of last year," he said.

Mohd Ajib said the acquisition would offer significant synergies in optimizing MSC's sourcing strategy and in aligning the two companies marketing strategies.

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