Trading houses Nissho Iwai Corp. and Nichimen Corp., which integrated their management under a holding company April 1, reported Thursday sizable group net losses for fiscal 2002.

The firms attributed the results to cost writeoffs associated with the consolidation.

Nissho Iwai, formerly the sixth-largest general trading firm in Japan, incurred a group net loss of 73.85 billion yen. It logged a net profit of 1.18 billion yen the previous year.

Net loss per share stood at 84.48 yen, against a per-share profit of 1.35 yen recorded the previous year.

Group pretax profit fell 59.2 percent to 13.55 billion yen, while operating profit slid 28.3 percent to 35.46 billion yen. Revenue fell 15.5 percent to 4.61 trillion yen.

Nissho Iwai said it booked an extraordinary loss of 110.91 billion yen, resulting primarily from expenses linked to asset disposal, business restructuring and other integration factors.

Nichimen reported a group net loss of 48.53 billion yen for fiscal 2002, with group revenue falling 8.1 percent to 1.88 trillion yen.

Net loss per share was 114.14 yen, compared with a per-share profit of 3.21 yen the previous year.

Group pretax profit declined 50.7 percent to 13.21 billion yen, while operating profit dipped 34.8 percent to 21.57 billion yen.

Mirroring the plight of Nissho Iwai, Nichimen booked integration costs, with extraordinary losses of 46.34 billion yen.

Nissho Iwai and Nichimen said they will pay no fiscal 2002 dividends.