More Obstacles Ahead for Chalco Despite Year-end Profits

(Beijing) -- State-owned Aluminum Corp. of China Ltd. (Chalco), the nation's biggest producer of aluminum, turned a profit before the year's end by selling 12.9 billion yuan of assets to its parent company. The sale allowed it to stave off a risk warning on mainland exchanges.

The company said on January 10 that it expects to earn about 1 billion yuan in net profits in 2013, which means the company could avoid getting branded as an "ST share." ST or Special Treatment, is a risk warning issued by the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges for listed companies that have two consecutive years of negative net profits.