CJ Cheiljedang Corp., South Korea’s leading food company, said Thursday that its fourth-quarter earnings rose more than seven times from a year earlier due to a one-off sale of stock holdings.

Net profit reached 132.7 billion won ($117.8 million) in the October-December period, up 626.6 percent from 18.2 billion won tallied a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Sales edged up 0.9 percent on-year to 159 trillion won in the cited period, and operating income gained 12.6 percent to 80.1 billion won, the company said.

“The sale of Samsung Life Insurance stocks mainly contributed to the net gains in the three-month period,” a company spokesperson said.

For the whole of 2011, however, earnings plunged 52.4 percent on-year to 314.1 billion won. Sales jumped 13.2 percent from 2010 to 6.5 trillion won, surpassing the 6 trillion won mark for the first time, and operating profit inched up 0.2 percent to 453.8 billion won.

Full-year sales were buoyed by solid demand for processed goods that reached 3.6 trillion won, the company said, adding that biotech operations did well last year.

CJ Cheiljedang said it aims to push up sales to 7.3 trillion won in 2012, with its operating profit target set at 550 billion won.

(Yonhap News)