Major credit-card firm Credit Saison Co. said Thursday it posted a group net loss of 6.03 billion yen for the business year through March 31, marking the first year the group has ended in the red on a consolidated basis.
The firm, which logged a profit of 18.23 billion yen the previous year, attributed the loss mainly to a heavy extraordinary loss connected to the bailout of its group firm Seibu Department Stores Ltd.
It said it booked an appraisal loss of 38.99 billion yen on its Seibu shareholdings and loan-loss charges of 18.96 billion yen as a result of its group's debt waiver to Seibu under the department store's rehabilitation plan.
In its consolidated earnings report, Credit Saison posted a pretax profit of 51 billion yen, down 14.6 percent from the previous year, with revenues down 1.2 percent to 212.24 billion yen.
The company said its core credit-card business performed briskly, but credit costs rose as the number of individual bankruptcies grew at a record-high pace.