MOL upwardly revises forecast for financial year 2007

JAPANESE shipping group MOL says it has revised its consolidated earnings forecast upwards for FY2007 that covers the period from April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2008.

The company said in a statement that the main reason for the revision was due to the "upswing in the dry bulker freight rate market, though bunker prices have remained high and compressed profits. The company made an upwards revision in the forecast for FY2007 announced earlier, based on prospects that the ocean shipping market will remain strong during the second half of the year".

MOL is now forecasting that net income for FY2007 will amount to JPY185 billion (US$1.60 billion), a 27.6 per cent increase over the earlier forecast of JPY145.0 billion.

The company said in the release it expects revenues for FY2007 to amount to JPY1.9 trillion billion, up 4.9 per cent on the July revenue forecast of JPY1.8 trillion.

It is also predicting an FY2007 operating income of JPY270 billion, which is 28.6 per cent higher than the operating income of JPY210 billion earlier forecast.

Finally, it expects ordinary income to be 21.7 per cent higher than earlier forecast, amounting to JPY280 billion for FY2007, up from the July forecast of JPY230 billion.

By comparison, for FY2006 ending March 2007, MOL achieved a consolidated net income of JPY120.9 billion on revenues of JPY1.5 trillion. The group's consolidated operating income amounted to JPY168 billion, while its ordinary income was JPY182.4 billion, the company statement added.