The financial health of South Korean companies improved slightly in the third quarter... as equity inched up,... but their debt also went up when compared to last year,... coupled with lackluster sales projected for this year.
Kim Ji-yeon reports.
The financal soundness of publically-listed Korean companies improved slightly during the third quarter this year... on lower debt-to-equity ratios, which are calculated by dividing a company's total liabilities by its stockholders' equity.
Data released by Korea Exchange on Monday shows... the debt-to-equity ratio of 585 firms on the benchmark KOSPI... came to around 106-point-six percent as of September.
However, their combined debt totaled 1-point-zero-3 trillion U.S. dollars as of end-September... a near-five-percent increase since the end of last year.
The firms' combined equity, meanwhile grew by more than six-and-a-half percent to 969-billion dollars during the same period.
By sector, transportation equipment and construction firms saw their debt-to-equity ratio drop,... while those related to coal, petroleum refining and real estate soared.
Although the debt-to-equity ratio recorded in September dropped by nearly one-point-nine-percentage-points from the same period last year... it still remains above 100-percent... meaning there is more debt than equity when companies finance their assets.
This comes amid lackluster sales recorded by Korean companies for this year.
Separate data by the Federation of Korean Industries shows seven out of ten local small-and-medium-sized companies project their sales for this year to remain similar or less than that of last year... mainly due to a drop in domestic and international consumption and a global recession.
Although eight out of ten local conglomerates said they expect their sales for this year to remain similar or improve slightly compared to that of last year... none of them responded that they expected a dramatic on-year sales increase for the same reasons.
Kim Ji-yeon reports.