Shunji Kobayashi - General Manager of Corporate Communications
Keiichi Iwata - President & Representative Director
Conference Call Participants
Takato Watabe - Morgan Stanley MUFG Securities
Makio Yamada - Mizuho Securities
Go Miyamoto - SMBC Nikko Securities
Hidemitsu Umebayashi - Daiwa Securities
Takashi Nishihira - Okasan Securities Co.
Shunji Kobayashi
I will be your facilitator today. My name is Kobayashi from Corporate Communications. Thank you very much for attending our Investors Meeting for FY 2024 First Half Financial Results, Management Priorities and Business Strategies. First, the President, Mr. Iwata, will make a presentation and later, we will receive your questions. We plan to conclude at 45 past 5.
Good afternoon. I'm Iwata, the President. Thank you very much for attending our investors meeting despite your very busy schedule. I'd like to thank the investors for your daily support and understanding to our management. Thank you very much for that. This is today's agenda. I will try to focus my explanation as much as possible and leave as much time as possible for Q&A.
Please turn to Page 3. First, this is today's executive summary. It is divided roughly into 3 sections. One is business performance. Core operating income of the first half of 2024 achieved a V-shaped recovery of more than ¥120 billion year-on-year with IT-related Chemicals reaching a record high for the first half and Pharmaceuticals resolving the losses. Unfortunately, there was a net loss of ¥6.5 billion, falling short of a positive income due largely to one-off factors such as foreign exchange losses and debt forgiveness of Rabigh but there was a significant improvement of about ¥70 billion from the previous year. For FY 2024 full year, we forecast core operating income of ¥100 billion and net