Ito-Yokado Co. said Thursday its group sales during the first half of its business year to August came to a record high of 1.88 trillion yen, up 4.5 percent from the previous year, due largely to brisk performance by the group's Seven-Eleven Japan Co.

Ito-Yokado said its consolidated net profit came to 37.49 billion yen, up 15.7 percent, and pretax profit to 128.33 billion yen, up 14.8 percent.

A recovery in personal spending and the firm's opening of new outlets helped boost the sales, it said.

Contributing largely to the buoyant results was its convenience store chain, Seven-Eleven Japan, which reported unconsolidated operating profit of 94.77 billion yen, up 3.0 percent, on revenue of 251.09 billion yen, up 4.5 percent.

Ito-Yokado itself saw a 23.5 percent fall in unconsolidated operating profit to 5.42 billion yen.

However, Ito-Yokado said its unconsolidated operating profit would rise 2.3-fold to 20 billion yen in the full business year to Feb. 28, as its business in the clothing segment was improving.

Seven & I Holdings Co., the holding company of Ito-Yokado formed Sept. 1, Seven-Eleven Japan and restaurant chain Denny's Japan Co., said their group net profit would probably come to 114.7 billion yen for the full business year.

In an earnings forecast for the year, Seven & I Holdings projected a pretax profit of 230.0 billion yen on estimated revenue of 3.7 trillion yen.

Seven & I Holdings projected a net profit per share of 134.26 yen for the period, pledging to pay a per-share yearend dividend of 28.50 yen, including a 7.00 yen dividend to commemorate its founding.

The full-year projections were made on the presumption that the holding firm would be founded on the March 1 start of the company's 2005 business year.