Nippon Steel Corp. said Thursday it posted a group net profit in fiscal 2000 of 26.49 billion yen, up by 137.1 percent.
The soaring profit margin was attributed to robust sales, cost-cutting efforts and 111.98 billion yen in extraordinary profits such as gains from selling securities holdings and fixed assets.
The firm also saw its group pretax profit jump 72.2 percent to 111.37 billion yen in the year that ended March 31, on sales of 2.75 trillion yen, up 2.6 percent. Revenues were powered by brisk steel sales in Japan and other parts of Asia along with steady earnings by its information technology business.