Mizuho more than halves profit estimate amid credit turmoil

TOKYO, Jan. 30 Kyodo - Mizuho Financial Group Inc. said Friday it has more than halved its earlier forecast of group net profit in the current business year ending in March, largely due to growing credit costs and losses on stock investments amid the global financial turmoil.
The move came as Mizuho, one of Japan's three mega-banking groups, booked a
group net loss of 50.55 billion yen (some $565 million) in the nine months
through December.
The group now expects a net profit of 100 billion yen, less than half of the
250 billion yen projected in November. It also downgraded its estimate of
pretax profit to 220 billion yen from 350 billion yen on operating revenues of
3.8 trillion yen, unchanged from the earlier forecast.
During the nine months, its consolidated pretax balance also fell into the red
with a loss of 19.21 billion yen.
The results, described as ''disappointing'' by a Mizuho official, compare with
a net profit of 393.03 billion yen and pretax profit of 490.99 billion yen
during the April-December period a year earlier.
Operating revenues fell 19 percent to 2.78 trillion yen.
The group's credit costs including loan-loss provisions more than doubled to
236.5 billion yen as the worldwide economic downturn has increasingly hurt its
borrowers.
As share prices fall amid the financial turmoil, Mizuho incurred 196.8 billion
yen in losses on its stock and other investments. Costs for bad-loan disposal
grew nearly 1.9 times to 219.1 billion yen.
Operating profit from the group's three core banking units declined 26.1
percent to 443.4 billion yen due partly to slumping sales of investment trusts.
==Kyodo