Doosan to Doubles Profit in 2010
By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff Reporter
Doosan Group has set this year's operating profit target at 1.6 trillion won (some $1.4 billion), up 100 percent from 2009, group chairman Park Yong-hyun said Thursday.
The nation's 10th-biggest conglomerate is aiming to reap 24.4 trillion won in total sales for 2010, up 14 percent from a year earlier, by applying selection and concentration strategy, he said.
It plans to reap over 60 percent of the projected 24.4 trillion won in sales from overseas, compared with about 50 percent in 2009, by advancing into markets in Russia and Latin America.
The group, whose key businesses range from shipbuilding, turbines and heavy equipment, also hopes to enter the ranks of the top global 200 in terms of sales by 2020.
``Outlook is still mixed over the global economy in 2010. Amid uncertainties, Doosan will place stable cash flow as the top corporate priority,'' he said.
``But we will seek ways for further external growth. Value and profit are the key conditions of the strategy,'' Park said, adding selective strategies upon markets will be implemented.
Referring to the results of its overseas acquisitions ― Bobcat and Skoda Power ― Park said Doosan will maximize synergetic effects with management integration of its overseas affiliates.
Citing the recent victory by a South Korean consortium on a $20.4 billion project in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), market analysts say this year would be brighter for the group's key heavy equipment unit.
``The news will lift profit and sales of the group's key affiliates. Coupled with hopeful signs in the shipbuilding industry, Doosan is likely to meet this year's target,'' Ha Seok-won, an analyst at Woori Investment, said.
``The revised sales and operating profit target is based on better performances by the group's key units. Although Doosan suffered a liquidity crisis in late 2008, shares of its units are bottoming out,'' Kim Jang-hwan, an analyst at Eugene Investment, said.