POSCO, South Korea's top steelmaker, said Thursday that it will focus on improving its financial structure this year by reducing investment and selling assets and equity holdings, following lackluster earnings results for last year.
  

POSCO plans to invest 4.2 trillion won ($3.9 billion) group-wide this year, down 1.2 trillion won from a year earlier, the company said at an investor relations event held in Seoul. The gathering was attended by POSCO CEO Kwon Oh-joon.
  

The steelmaker also said it will sell assets deemed to be "not core" to its business, while putting equity holdings in other affiliates up for sale and pushing for initial public offerings, a move intended to improve its financial structure and enhance competitiveness.
  

POSCO earlier reported that its consolidated-based sales grew 5.2 percent on-year to 65.1 trillion won, with operating profit rising 7.3 percent to 3.21 trillion won. But it posted a 58.9 percent plunge in net profit for 2014.
  

For this year, POSCO said it aims to post 67.4 trillion won in sales, a 3.5 percent improvement over the year before. It also set its target for steelmaking at 38.4 million tons, up 750,000 tons from 2014, while pushing to sell 35.9 million tons of products, 1.56 million tons more than the year before. (Yonhap)