Mitsubishi UFJ profits decline on reduced bad debt write-backs

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2006

TOKYO (AFP) — Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, the world's largest bank by assets, has reported a 15.7 percent drop in net profit for the quarter to June on reduced gains from bad loan write-backs.

Net profit declined to 219.5 billion yen (1.92 billion dollars) in the fiscal first quarter after a combined profit of 260.4 billion made by the two merger partners a year earlier, the group said in a statement.

MUFG was launched last year from a merger between Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group and loss-making UFJ to become the world's largest bank by assets.

Japan's banks are seeing a significant improvement in their fortunes as they finally emerge from a bad debt crisis stretching back a decade and more now that the world's number two economy has snapped out of...