[Alpha Biz=(Chicago) Reporter Paul Lee] Meritz Securities lowered its target stock price to 25,000 won on the 20th, saying its fourth-quarter operating profit was far below estimates. The investment opinion remained "buying."

Meritz Securities Co. said its fourth-quarter sales of 516.7 billion won were in line with our estimates, but its operating profit of 50.8 billion won was 66.1 percent lower.

"Despite sluggish sales of customer musk in South Korea, sales showed the highest quarterly sales due to increased supply of customer musk in North America and increased BH EVS sales, but operating profit was sluggish, reflecting a number of one-off costs, including additional costs of setting up new IT OLED lines and external costs," Meritz Securities explained.

In the first quarter of this year, sales fell 0.7% year-on-year to 311.6 billion won and operating profit fell 8.7% to 8.1 billion won.

 

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