China Rongsheng shares fall after first-half profit warning

Shares of China Rongsheng Heavy Industries Group, the country’s largest private shipbuilder, fell 4.4 percent on Friday after the company said it expects to post a significantly higher first-half loss compared to last year.

The shipbuilder, which faced possible insolvency last year before agreeing in March with banks to extend loans and other financing worth 10 billion yuan ($1.62 billion) to 2015, attributed the widening loss to a further fall in production activity as shipowners revised or cancelled their contracts.

“The Group is expected to incur a significant increase in net loss for the six months ended 30 June 2014 as compared with the corresponding period in 2013,” it said in a statement after the Hong Kong stock exchange shut on Thursday.

Rongsheng, which has suffered as orders slumped amid a global shipping downturn, posted a first-half net loss of 1.3 billion yuan last year. It reported a net loss of 8.68 billion yuan for its fiscal year ended December 2013.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Brenda Goh; Editing by Kazunori Takada)