Keppel posts 8.4% growth in Q3 net profit

By JOYCE HOOI


KEPPEL Corporation's net profit attributable to shareholders for the third quarter ended Sept 30, 2010 rose 8.4 per cent from $319.6 million a year ago to $346.3 million.

Revenue, however, fell 19.4 per cent from $3.04 billion to $2.45 billion for the same period.

For the nine months ended Sept 30, 2010, net profit attributable to shareholders rose 10.1 per cent to $1.02 billion, before taking into account last year's exceptional gain of $422 million from the disposal of SPC which was partially offset by impairment of non-performing assets.

Taking into account the disposal, net profit fell 24.5 per cent from $1.3 billion to $1.02 billion.

Revenue for the same period shed 20.4 per cent, from $9.22 billion to $7.34 billion.

Earnings per share for the quarter rose 7.5 per cent from 20 cents to 21.5 cents.

For the nine months ended Sept 30, 2010, earnings per share rose 9.2 per cent from 57.8 cents to 63.1 cents. After taking into account the SPC disposal, earnings per sharefell 25.1 per cent from 84.2 cents to 63.1 cents.