ThyssenKrupp forecasts 1 bn euro profit

FRANKFURT: The biggest German steelmaker, ThyssenKrupp, hopes to make a pre-tax profit of at least one billion euros (1.38 billion dollars) in its current fiscal year, its boss said on Wednesday in an interview.

"For the pre-tax profit we are headed for a figure of a billion, or more," Ekkehard Schulz told the business daily Handelsblatt.

ThyssenKrupp, whose business year begins on October 1, had previously forecast a pre-tax profit of between 100 million euros and one billion, and expected to fall somewhere in the middle.

In its 2008/2009 fiscal year the group suffered a pre-tax loss of 2.4 billion euros owing in part to a global economic slump.

Schulz said the group had managed to cut costs and also expected sales to gain in the 2010/2011 year, noting that its biggest steel furnaces were operating at full capacity.

He is to step down as chairman in January and be replaced by Heinrich Hiesinger, who was recruited from Siemens.