ATHENS: Greece's biggest cement maker Titan is heading for a second consecutive year of losses, weighed down by an austerity-fuelled construction slump at home, its nine-month earnings indicated on Tuesday.
The company posted a net loss of 15 million euros ($20.11 million) for January-September, compared with a 2 million euro profit in the same period last year.
Analysts also expect losses in the fourth quarter when construction activity typically subsides because of winter, according to ThomsonReuters Eikon data, meaning Titan is likely to be in the red for the full year.
The company posted a loss last year for the first time since at least 1994, amounting to 24.5 million euros and forcing it to abandon a dividend payment for the first time since the 1950s.
Construction activity in Greece, which has had to seek two international bailouts since 2010, has shrunk to less than a fifth of its size of six years ago, when the economy plunged into a recession from which it yet has to emerge and which has wiped out about 25 percent of Greek output.
Titan has mitigated some of the slump by increasing exports to countries such as Libya and benefiting from economic recovery in the United States, which accounts for about a third of its sales volume.
"In Greece, the building materials sector posted a further, albeit milder, decline compared to 2012," said Titan which runs cement plants in Virginia and Florida.
"In the USA, the recovery in the housing market is anticipated to drive construction growth, especially in markets such as Florida, which were particularly hard-hit by the crisis."
Titan's share price has rallied by about 40 percent on the Athens bourse since June, as investors bet that Greece has escaped a chaotic default and is heading towards a gradual recovery.
However, the stock price is still well below levels seen four years ago.
The nine-month results were released after the market close on Tuesday. Titan is one of 10 Greek stocks included in the MSCI Emerging Stock Markets Index.
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