Hitachi : shares rise after report it is considering scrapping Britain nuclear project
December 10, 2018 at 06:52 am
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TOKYO (Reuters) - Hitachi Ltd shares rose as much as 2.9 percent on Monday after Japan's TV Asahi reported the firm is considering scrapping its 3 trillion yen (20.91 billion pounds) nuclear project in Britain due to projections of further increases in construction costs.
Hitachi's Horizon Nuclear Power plans to build over 5 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity at two sites in Britain – the first at Wylfa Newydd in Wales.
The project will be discussed at Hitachi's board meeting on Tuesday, and a conclusion is likely to be made by the end of the business year through March, TV Asahi reported. Giving up the project would incur Hitachi a 270 billion yen loss, it said.
A Hitachi spokesman declined to comment on the report when contacted by Reuters.
Hitachi shares ended up 1 percent at 3,254 yen, compared with a 2.1 percent decline in the Nikkei share average <.N225>.
(Reporting by Hideyuki Sano and Daiki Iga; Editing by Stephen Coates and Christopher Cushing)
Hitachi specializes in manufacturing and marketing of electronic and industrial equipments. Net sales (including intragroup) break down by family of products and services as follows:
- social infrastructure and industrial systems (24.7%): elevators, escalators, industrial facilities, railway systems, power generation units, etc. The group also provides engineering and construction of nuclear, hydroelectric, and thermal power plants services;
- information and telecommunications products and services (20.1%): systems integration, cloud computing, software, servers, hard disks, PCs, ATMs, data communication base stations, payment terminals, etc.;
- materials and components (16.6%): semi-conductor materials, printed circuit cards, cables, copper and forged steel products, magnetic materials, organic and inorganic chemical products, etc.;
- construction equipment (10%) : hydraulic excavators, wheel loaders, mining equipment, etc.;
- automotive systems (9.4%): powertrain systems, control systems, etc.;
- electronic products (9.2%): fiber-optic components, screen tubes, testing and measurement equipment, medical equipment, equipment for manufacturing semiconductors, etc.;
- household appliances (4.7%): heating and air conditioning equipments, refrigerators, washing machines, etc.;
- other (5.3%): mainly transport, financial and logistical services.
Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: Japan (49.2%), Asia (21.3%), North America (12.7%), Europe (10.8%) and other (6%).