Chile, Santiago: Chilean industrial and financial conglomerate Quinenco, which owns 31% of Chile's largest brewer CCU, announced on Tuesday, November 9 that its January-September net profit slumped 49% as a gain in the same year-earlier period obscured buoyant sales and operating profit at its Madeco copper cable unit. The company said net profit in the nine-month period was 21.14 billion pesos ($35 million) compared with 41.13 billion pesos in the same period last year, according to Reuters.

Quinenco, controlled by Chile's wealthy Luksic family, is the biggest shareholder of copper cable manufacturer Madeco and Chile's No. 2 bank Banco de Chile. It holds 31 percent of Chile's largest brewer CCU.

The conglomerate said revenue in the January-September period rose 4.5 percent to 291.84 billion pesos, while operating profit -- that is earnings before interest, taxes, non-cash items, financial costs and extraordinary costs items -- rose 96 percent to 22.14 billion pesos.

In 2003 Quinenco registererd an extraordinary gain of 36.72 billion pesos due to a payment from a former partner in one of its businesses. ($1 = 603 Chilean pesos)