South Korean yard giant Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) ended the third quarter of this year with a profit of KRW 45.7 billion (USD 41 million), compared to a net loss of KRW 284 billion posted a year earlier, Yonhap said.
The troubled shipbuilder is significantly better off than last year after a rescue package from the South Korean government in the spring.
DSME, which has battled a highly publicised liquidity crunch for the past two years, posted profit for the third straight quarter from July through September, largely thanks to cost-cutting measures and increased delivery of offshore facilities.
The improvement in the bottom line marks the third straight quarter that the shipyard remained in the black.
The shipbuilder logged an operating income of 207 billion won in the third quarter, also shifting from an operating loss of 187 billion won a year earlier, with sales down 19.8 percent on-year to reach 2.42 trillion won.
In the first nine months of the year, Daewoo Shipbuilding racked up a net profit of 1.53 trillion won and an operating income of 1.09 trillion won and sales of 8.6 trillion won.
For the first time since 2011, DSME has recorded a cumulative operating profit exceeding KRW1 trillion.
The shipbuilder is hard pressed to implement self-rescue measures worth 5.3 trillion won through 2018. It has already sold off noncore assets and cut its workforce, through which it has raised or saved 1.8 trillion won.
This year alone, it aims to conduct 2.77 trillion won in self-rescue schemes, with some 2.45 trillion won already implemented.