Nucor Sales Up, Income Down

Jason Sandefur

Nucor Corp. announced net income for the third quarter of 2003 fell 59% to $16 million on higher scrap and energy costs, while record steel production and shipments boosted revenue 31% to $1.6 billion.
Q3 total tons shipped to outside customers rose 37% and average sales price per ton fell 5%. Nucor said Q3 results were also affected by “continued severely depressed levels of nonresidential construction and capital-goods markets, and increased pre-operating and start-up costs.”

For the first nine months of 2003, net sales grew 31% to $4.6 billion, primarily due to acquisitions. New earnings for the nine-month period dropped 64.5% to $42.2 million.
Despite mixed results, Nucor expressed optimism.
�If economic conditions continue to recover, we expect earnings in 2004 to improve significantly over 2003.� Web: nucor.com �2003 FastenerNews.com