By Yuka Obayashi and Katya Golubkova
TOKYO (Reuters) -Japanese trading houses from Mitsubishi to Sumitomo Corp promised healthy shareholder returns this year amid cautious profit forecasts, trying to keep investors, including Warren Buffett, happy amid U.S. tariff uncertainty.
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is a large minority shareholder in Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo, Itochu and Marubeni. It has been recently raising stakes in the companies which trade everything from gas to food.
Mitsubishi expects net profit for the year ending next March to fall 26% due to the absence of one-off gains from asset sales it enjoyed last fiscal year. But it still plans to increase its dividend by 10 yen to 110 yen ($0.76) per share and to continue with its 1 trillion yen share repurchase programme, it said on Friday.
Chief Executive Officer Katsuya Nakanishi told a briefing he believes that his company has gained trust from Buffet, citing the recent increase of Berkshire Hathaway’s stake in Mitsubishi.
“We understand that he (Buffet) has placed trust in our strategy and management approach,” Nakanishi said on Friday.
Itochu, which targets net profit to hit another record high this year of 900 billion yen thanks to non-resource businesses, plans to continue with a shareholder payout ratio of 50% and will spend 150 billion yen to buy back up to 2% of its own shares.
Both Marubeni and Sumitomo set aside loss buffers of 30 billion yen and 40 billion yen, respectively, for the possible negative impact from U.S. tariffs which Japan is trying to avert.
Marubeni plans shareholder distributions of 210 billion yen as it aims for a shareholder return ratio of around 40%, and will buy back up to 4.2% of its shares worth 70 billion yen, it said on Friday.
Sumitomo plans to increase its annual dividend to 140 yen for the year ending next March, from 130 yen now, and to buy back up to 2.9% of its shares worth 80 billion yen, it said on Thursday.
($1 = 145.1800 yen)
(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi and Katya Golubkova; Editing by Kim Coghill)
