Dow Jones Newswires: ArcelorMittal reports worse-than-forecast profit slump on impairment charges, lower volume

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ArcelorMittal on Thursday reported a massive fall in fourth-quarter net profit, missing market forecasts, as it booked an impairment and exceptional costs in its accounts, negative price-cost and lower volumes.

The Luxembourg-based steelmaker
MT,
-0.95%

made a net income for the quarter of $261 million compared with $4.045 billion for the same period a year earlier on sales that fell 19% to $16.89 billion.

The company booked a $1.03 billion impairment charge related to property, plant and equipment with respect to ArcelorMittal Kriviy Rih (Ukraine), where the ongoing conflict with Russia resulted in low levels of production, sales and income and created significant uncertainty about the timing and ability of operations to return to a normal level of activity.

Net income consensus was $358 million, while sales consensus was $15.96 billion, both taken from the company’s website.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization fell to $1.26 billion from $5.05 billion a year earlier and compared with a consensus of $1.26 billion.

Quarterly steel shipments fell 6.9% to 12.6 million metric tons compared with the third quarter on the back of lower demand due to destocking.

Write to Ian Walker at ian.walker@wsj.com