TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese trading house Marubeni on Friday posted a 7% increase in net profit for the year ended in March at 503 billion yen ($3.5 billion), its second biggest ever and beating forecasts.
A LSEG poll of analysts had forecast Marubeni’s fiscal year net profit at 498 billion yen. The company forecasts net profit for the year ending next March at 510 billion yen, which includes a 30 billion yen loss buffer for unexpected events.
Marubeni’s loss buffer follows a similar move by its peer Sumitomo Corp on Thursday which set aside 40 billion yen for ‘a certain degree of indirect impact’ from U.S. tariffs on Japan, which Tokyo is now trying to avert.
While setting aside the loss buffer, Marubeni does not expect significant and immediate negative impact from U.S. tariffs, Chief Executive Masayuki Omoto told a briefing.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is a large minority shareholder in Marubeni, Sumitomo and a number of other Japanese trading houses and has recently been increasing its ownership.
Marubeni targets growth investments of 570 billion yen for the year ending next March, including in power trading and food business, and plans shareholder distributions at 210 billion yen as it aims for shareholder return ratio of around 40%.
The company plans to buy back up to 4.2% of its shares worth 70 billion yen and consider 230 billion yen in divestments, mainly in its infrastructure and finance business, it said.
($1 = 145.4300 yen)
(Reporting by Katya Golubkova and Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Kim Coghill)
