on Thursday, the world's leading integrated steel and mining company ArcelorMittal announced in the first quarter of this year received substantial damages and temporarily suspends the payment of dividends in connection with the pandemic coronavirus.
Quarterly net loss of 1.12 ArcelorMittal has exceeded billion dollars, compared with a profit of 414 million dollars a year earlier. In the fourth quarter of 2019 ArcelorMittal's net loss amounted to 1.88 billion dollars.
Sales dropped to 14.84 with to 19.19 billion, partly due to the reduction in the supply of steel associated with the pandemic coronavirus.
"Economic activity and market conditions have become much worse, as governments around the world have adopted measures to contain the pandemic COVID-19," said ArcelorMittal.
Profit before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was above the consensus forecast and amounted to 967 million dollars compared with $ 1.65 billion a year earlier.
ArcelorMittal expects EBITDA in the second quarter will be in the range of 400 to 600 million dollars.
"On the background of significant measures to reduce costs, undertaken in the framework of the business, the Board of Directors deemed it appropriate to suspend dividend payments as long as the operating environment is not normal", - stated in the message.
still too many uncertainties to accurately predict what will happen in the rest of the year ... the Rest of this year will be difficult, but I am sure that ArcelorMittal has the experience and inherent ability to cope with these difficult times," commented CEO Lakshmi N. Mittal.
