“K” LINE REVISES PROFIT FORECAST

“K” LINE REVISES PROFIT FORECAST

“K” LINE REVISES PROFIT FORECAST

   “K” Line has increased its forecast for its ordinary profit for the current financial year, due to end on March 31, 2001, but kept its forecast net profit unchanged.
   Non-consolidated ordinary profit for the year is now expected to reach 22 billion yen ($205 million), as compared to an earlier profit forecast of Yen17 billion ($159 million) announced in May. The revised ordinary profit for the current year is twice the level of the actual ordinary profit of Yen11.1 billion achieved in the April 1999/March 2000 financial year.
   “K” Line said that it expects its non-consolidated net profit for the current fiscal year to be Yen4 billion ($37 million), as forecast in May. In fiscal year 1999/2000, “K” Line also posted a net profit of Yen4 billion.
   The net profit will be affected by “possible losses incurred through ownership transfer of high-cost ships and so on,” “K” Line said.
   Operating revenues for the current fiscal year are expected to be Yen420 billion ($3.9 billion), 16 percent more in local currency than the Yen362 billion revenue figure for the 1999/2000 fiscal year.
   “During the first half of fiscal year ending March 31, 2001, the sudden hike of bunker prices gave a negative impact on profitability,” a spokesman for “K” Line said. “We now are able to predict, however, that operating revenues and ordinary profit will turn out to have improved due to cheaper Yen against the U.S. dollar, and also more favorable markets for trampers and tankers than previously anticipated.”
   Business circumstances in the second half of the fiscal year — October to March — look stable from an overall perspective despite record high bunker prices, “K” Line said.