Huntsman narrows loss

Salt Lake-based Huntsman Corp., which raised $1.45 billion last month in the world's largest public stock sale this year, said Thursday that its fourth-quarter loss narrowed amid soaring prices for basic chemicals.

The net loss narrowed to $1.2 million from $105.6 million a year earlier, Huntsman said in a prepared statement. No per-share results were provided because Huntsman, the world's fourth-largest chemical company, didn't go public until the first quarter, spokesman John Heskett said. Sales rose 32 percent to $3.13 billion from $2.37 billion.

Chief executive Peter R. Huntsman is shutting plants and paying down debt to reduce costs. Restructuring expenses jumped ninefold to $96.9 million. Surging demand helped quadruple profit from basic chemicals, including ethylene, the world's most widely used petrochemical, as prices soared 60 percent.

Results "were better than I expected," Greenwich Consultants analyst Michael Judd said in a telephone interview. "They've been reducing their costs, volumes are higher and prices are higher." He rates the shares "buy."

Shares of Huntsman, the world's largest producer of MDI polyurethane used in foam insulation, fell 35 cents to close at $27.25 on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock has gained 18 percent since the initial public offering on Feb. 11.

"We saw improved results in the commodity segments of our business as global supply and demand conditions continued to come more into balance," Peter Huntsman said in the statement. "We remain optimistic about our outlook for 2005."

Profit excluding taxes, restructuring and other costs rose 81 percent to $401.5 million and will be higher in the first quarter because of improvements in base chemicals and polyurethanes, chief financial officer J. Kimo Esplin told analysts and investors on a conference call.

The company is halfway toward its goal of reducing fixed costs by 10 percent, or $200 million, Peter Huntsman said on the call. "We are confident our target will be met by the end of 2005," he said.

Huntsman's capital spending will jump 76 percent this year, to $400 million from $227 million in 2004, including construction of a polyethylene plant in Wilton, United Kingdom, and a polyurethanes plant in Shanghai, China.

The company last month sold 55.7 million common shares and 5.75 million preferred shares to help trim $6.2 billion in debt to less than $5 billion, Huntsman, 41, said last month in an interview. Net debt should be $4.86 billion after using the share proceeds to redeem high-interest notes, the company said.