Kobe Steel profit soars 61% on asset sales

Kobe Steel reported first-quarter profit of 38.6 billion yen, up 60.7% year-on-year, driven by 16.7 billion yen in extraordinary income from cross-shareholdings and land sales.

However, ordinary profit fell 17.9% to 28.8 billion yen due to cost increases and inventory valuation impacts, while net sales dropped 3.7%.

The company revised its full-year ordinary profit forecast down by 10 billion yen to 110 billion yen, citing an expected 5 billion yen negative impact from U.S. tariffs.