Mitsubishi Corp says Australian strike hurt profit

Japan's top trading house Mitsubishi Corp. said Thursday that lower commodity prices and labour action at its Australian coking-coal subsidiary weighed on quarterly earnings.

The company said its net profit slipped 15.2 percent to 98.14 billion yen ($1.25 billion) in the three months to June from a year ago while revenue edged down 0.8 percent to 4.8 trillion yen in the quarter.

Mitsubishi blamed the revenue drop on lower prices and falling output at the coal project amid the labour strife.

A strong yen and higher sales and administrative costs also weighed, it said in a statement.

The coal project, an alliance between Mitsubishi and Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP Billiton, has been beset by weather problems and a long-running dispute over wages and worker participation in business strategy.

The project, which is now operating at about 70 percent capacity, is a major earnings driver for Mitsubishi.

The Japanese firm said the joint venture would likely reach a settlement with its workers this month and resume full operations around the end of September.

For the fiscal year to March 2013, Mitsubishi kept its forecast for a net profit of 500 billion yen, up 10.2 percent from the previous year.

Operating profit was forecast to soar 25.4 percent to 340 billion yen with revenue rising 4.3 percent to 21 trillion yen.

-- Dow Jones Newswires contributed to this article --

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mitsubishi-corp-says-australian-strike-hurt-profit-163249078--finance.html

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