Fuji Television Network Inc. said Thursday it will split its wholly owned subsidiary Nippon Broadcasting System Inc. into an asset management company, which it will absorb, and a radio broadcasting firm.
When the transactions are completed in April, Fuji TV will become the holding company of the Fujisankei Communications Group led by Fuji TV and will spearhead groupwide efforts to streamline operations, the TV broadcaster said.
The TV network will take over the 573,704 Fuji TV shares held by NBS, or about 20 percent of all outstanding shares, as a result of the group reorganization and will retire them upon the absorption of the asset management unit.
On Sept. 1, Fuji TV converted NBS into a wholly owned subsidiary as a step toward ending their complicated capital relations.
Fuji TV said, separately, its group operating revenues in the first half of fiscal 2005 grew 25.0 percent over a year earlier to 294.82 billion yen, reflecting the conversion of NBS into a wholly owned unit and an increase in TV ad revenue on the back of higher viewer ratings than rival broadcasters.
The substantial increase in revenues helped Fuji TV record a net profit of 12.75 billion yen, up 24.6 percent, and a pretax profit of 24.95 billion yen, up 7.1 percent, the Tokyo-based television network said in a consolidated earnings report for the April-September period.
Net profit per share rose to 6,318.37 yen from 4,135.35 yen.
Fuji TV plans to pay a dividend of 2,000 yen per share for the fiscal first half, up from the year-before dividend of 600 yen.
For the entire fiscal year to next March 31, Fuji TV expects a net profit of 23.0 billion yen and a pretax profit of 46.6 billion yen on revenue of 576.9 billion yen, compared with the previous year's corresponding figures of 22.85 billion, 44.48 billion and 476.73 billion yen.