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TOKYO :Japan’s largest lender Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group reported on Wednesday a 32 per cent surge in quarterly net profit, powered by sales of cross-shareholdings and a bump in margins due to higher interest rates in Japan.
Three rate hikes since March 2024 have widened domestic loan spreads, while the return of inflation has encouraged large Japanese corporations, which make up the bulk of MUFG’s corporate clients, to take on loans for growth investments.
Profit in the October-December period came in at 490.74 billion yen ($3.16 billion) versus 370.64 billion yen a year earlier, according to Reuters’ calculations based on nine-month cumulative figures disclosed in a filing.
MUFG has reached 99.9 per cent of its annual profit guidance of 1.75 trillion yen in the first nine months of the financial year, and is narrowly trailing the 1.841 trillion yen average annual estimate of 14 analysts polled by LSEG.
The lender, which owns about 23.5 per cent of Wall Street bank Morgan Stanley, sold an additional 55 billion worth of its equity holdings over the October-December period, with a further 37 billion agreed to be sold before the end of March 2027.
($1 = 155.2400 yen)
