Specializing in chemical and fiber materials, Huvis(CEO Shin, You Dong, 079980), held a board meeting on February 22nd and disclosed its decision to pay a cash dividend of 300 won per share. This comes to a dividend yield of 4.0%, with the total amount reaching 9.87 billion won. The dividend date is December 31st, 2018 and is to be paid out before April 30th, 2019.

For seven years since the stock listing, the company has been paying an average cash dividend of over 3.3%. This rate is greatly above the KOSPI average of 1.62% (based in 2017).

The performance disclosure, carried out on the same day, revealed 2018 sales of 1 trillion 262.5 billion won, an operating profit of 34.4 billion won, and a net income of 19 billion won. (based on the linked financial statement)
Compared to 2017, sales and operating profit increased by 5.4% and 29.4% respectively, whereas net income was reduced by 18.0%.
An associate for the company commented that, “Even with the sudden fluctuations in material costs, the provision for our flagship product, LMF*, stabilized. Differentiated fibers such as fibers for Hygiene Suppliess and stretchable fibers saw growth in sales, allowing us to bring nearly a 30% increase in operating profit.”

Moreover, Huvis further disclosed the company’s plans to integrate the operation of the production line and work force in its Ulsan plantwith those of Jeonju plant.
In order to prepare for the mounting competition in the global market by strengthening the edge in cost, the production facilities currently spread in the two locations will be merged. Staple fibers and PPS (Super Fibers) are currently produced in Ulsan plant at 150,000 tons annually. The merging of production facilities will begin this April and will be completed by April 2020.  
Resulting from this merge, the empty lot in Jeonju plant will be utilized to maximize the operating rate of various utilities and polymerization processes. Through the enlargement of production facilities, the company hopes to reduce production costs and improve the competitiveness of its product portfolio by widening the range of the flagship LMF* and other differentiated products.

CEO of Huvis, You-dong Shin, revealed, “The decision to merge the production lines stems from the need to proactively strengthen our competitiveness in today’s increasingly difficult market environment. The improvement in our profitability will be well underway beginning from 2020.”
Huvis plans to hold its 19th annual general meeting at Gangnam-gu Nonhyun 2-dong community center (7th floor) at 09:30 on March 20th.

* LMF(Low Melting Fiber): Staple fiber with a low-melting point for adhesion, Huvis is the global leader in sales