Sanrio Co. said Thursday it will issue about 20 billion yen worth of new shares to Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and other firms to prop up its capital base.

The latter has been undermined by an expected 21.9 billion yen extraordinary loss on theme park facilities in the first half of fiscal 2004.

Sanrio said common stock worth 500 million yen will be allotted to Mitsubishi Corp. through the third-party allocation plan. The remainder will be issued to Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi -- Sanrio's main bank and a key unit of Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group Inc. -- as well as three other companies.

Sanrio expects to post an extraordinary loss of 21.9 billion yen for the April-September period to reflect the reduced value of its assets, apparently including Sanrio Puroland, a money-losing theme park in the city of Tama, western Tokyo.

The loss is forecast to result in a consolidated net loss of 18.5 billion yen for the half-year term and is likely to cause 16.2 billion yen in red ink for the entire fiscal year, it said.

This compares with a group net profit of 2.89 billion yen for the corresponding six-month period last year and a 5.36 billion yen profit for fiscal 2003.

Sanrio also announced a plan to form an alliance with trading house Mitsubishi to promote its content business featuring Hello Kitty and other popular characters in the rest of Asia.