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Japan's Mitsubishi UFJ posts 64 percent profit drop
AFP - Wednesday, November 19
TOKYO (AFP) - - Japanese megabank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) said Tuesday its first-half net profits slumped 64 percent, battered by the global financial crisis and a weak domestic economy.
MUFG, which is buying a chunk of Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley, said net profit tumbled to 92.0 billion yen (948 million dollars) in the six months to September, down from 256.7 billion a year earlier.
The figure was even lower than a preliminary estimate of a 100 billion yen profit given by the group last month.
"In addition to sluggish financial markets at home and abroad, rising credit costs and impairment in our shareholdings affected" profits, group president Nobuo Kuroyanagi told reporters.
Mitsubishi UFJ kept its forecast for net profit to drop 65 percent to 220 billion yen in the full financial year to March. Last month it slashed the forecast from a previous projection of 640 billion yen.
Japan's banks had been seen as relatively resilient to the global financial crisis that brought down once-mighty US banks Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and pushed financial firms worldwide to the brink of bankruptcy.
But they are now being squeezed by a plunging stock market and a Japanese economy in recession.
Credit cost in the first half to September increased by 67.4 billion yen from the previous year to 334.9 billion, and losses from the falling value of shareholdings swelled by 129.7 billion yen to 75.2 billion, the megabank said.
Credit costs from its overseas operation stood at roughly 50 billion yen, of which 23.5 billion yen came from losses related to Lehman Brothers, it said.
"Credit costs have accumulated primarily from (loans to) small and mid-sized companies, which are different from our past experience when big companies failed" as Japan's own financial bubble burst in the 1990s, Kuroyanagi said.
He said the problems were widening from the construction and real estate sectors to a range of industries including manufacturing and services.
Mitsubishi UFJ said last month it would tap investors for up to 10.5 billion dollars to weather the financial crisis and pay for the Morgan Stanley deal, which Kuroyanagi said would eventually pay off from the Japanese megabank.
"I believe that demand for the banking business... involving mergers and acquisitions and equity will be there at the global level and among globalised Japanese companies" once the global economy turns around, he said.
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