Ailing truck maker Nissan Diesel Motor Co. announced Wednesday that it has revised downward its earnings projection for fiscal 1998 from 230 billion yen to 220 billion yen, blaming the domestic economic slump that has taken a big bite out of truck sales.
Nissan Diesel now expects to suffer net losses of 14 billion yen for fiscal 1998, although five months ago it had projected losses of 3 billion yen.
The downward revisions are partly due to a 20 billion yen infusion it will sink into its marketing arm, Nissan Diesel Motor Sales Co. Parent firm Nissan Motor Co. will also inject 20 billion yen into the sales arm.
With the cash, Nissan Diesel Motor Sales plans to write off extraordinary losses of 40 billion yen expected to be incurred due to a gap between the book value and the market value of investments it has made in its dealers, officials said.
Nissan Diesel Motor Sales now owns shares worth 80 billion yen in total book value, all of which were issued by sales affiliates. The firm may post further losses for next fiscal year, Nakazawa said.
Nissan Diesel had been negotiating with DaimlerChrysler AG over a possible capital tieup, but talks were broken off Tuesday due to huge accumulated losses at the Nissan Diesel group.