Samsung C&T Corp., a construction and trading unit of Samsung Group, said Thursday its net profit grew 7.2 percent on-year in 2014 thanks to large overseas construction projects.

Net profit came to 285.52 billion won ($261.01 million) last year, compared with the previous year’s 266.37 billion won, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Operating profit jumped 50.6 percent on-year to 652.36 billion won last year, and sales inched up 0.04 percent to 28.45 trillion won over the cited period.

The company said its overall earnings improved as construction of major overseas projects in Australia, Saudi Arabia and Qatar got underway last year, which was reflected in its bottom line.

In the construction sector, Samsung C&T’s sales came to 14.87 trillion won, up 10.7 percent from a year earlier and its operating profit also grew 64.5 percent to 569 billion won.

Samsung C&T, however, posted lackluster results in its trading sector in which its sales fell 9.5 percent on-year to 13.72 trillion won and operating profit shrank 3.5 percent to 83 billion won.

It is the first time that the company‘s construction sector outperformed its trading business on an annual basis.

For the fourth quarter of last year, the company logged a net loss of 54.03 billion won, a turnaround from a profit of 1.84 billion won a year earlier.

The company said that the turnaround is due to a one-off factor from the flooding-caused delay in the construction of power plant facilities in Saudi Arabia. (Yonhap)