The Construction Materials Supplier Posted a 34% Fall in Net Income

Saint-Gobain said it is drawing in its horns after the construction materials supplier posted a 34% fall in net income for the first half of the year. The company said deterioration in the economic climate in western Europe since May marred a broadly satisfactory start to the year and the focus would be to maintain sales prices in order to pass on the rise in raw materials and engery costs over the full year. New cost-cutting measures had saved ?70m in the first half, with ?00m expected for 2012. CEO Pierre-André de Chalendar said: "In the second half of 2012 we are firmly reinforcing our new action plan to focus on sales prices, stepping up our cost cutting programme and scaling back our capital spending and financial investments, while maintaining a tight rein on operating working capital. " He added: "We are now expecting for the year as a whole a measured rise in our sales prices, a limited decline in our volumes and second-half operating income to be moderately down on our first half performance. " Net income, excluding disposals, write-downs and non-recurring provisions, in the first six months of 2012 was down 28% to ?02m from ?06m. Net income fell 34% to ?68m. Sales were up 3.4% to ?1.6bn from ?0.9bn a year before. Source: ttjonline