In a bid to accelerate its restructuring, Isuzu Motor Ltd. said Thursday it has sold its headquarters building and land in Tokyo to Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Co.

The automaker said it will also sell shares in its wholly owned leasing unit, Ifco Inc., to Orix Corp.

Isuzu sold the headquarters building and land for 23 billion yen to the major life insurer effective Thursday, while 16 million Ifco shares -- representing 80 percent of outstanding shares -- will be transferred to Orix for 20.6 billion yen effective today.

Isuzu will stay on in the building as a tenant.

Isuzu said it will retain the remaining 20 percent in Ifco, which will continue to serve as a core financial unit for the automaker.

It will report some 7.5 billion yen in extraordinary profits for the first half of fiscal 2001 through the end of September as a result of the Ifco share sales.

Ifco, established in November 1964, has 461 employees. It posted 3.299 billion yen in pretax profits for fiscal 2000, more than doubling the 1.513 billion yen posted the previous year.

Isuzu will also report 2 billion yen in extraordinary profits on its assets sales in the half-year term through the end of September.

Despite the extraordinary profits on the stocks and assets sales, however, Isuzu will not change its earnings projection for fiscal 2001, as such profits will be offset by stock appraisal losses from the recent market slump and efforts to step up consolidation of the firm's affiliates, company officials said.

Under the ongoing three-year restructuring program, Isuzu is to close down its truck-production plant in Kawasaki and slash groupwide employees by 9,700 by the end of 2005.

In a separate announcement the same day, Orix Corp. said its acquisition of Ifco Inc. will lift Orix's group net profit projection for the current business year to March to 40.9 billion yen from 40.1 billion yen.