Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. said Wednesday its group net balance in the first half to Sept. 30 returned to the black, thanks mainly to a sizable decrease in latent losses on securities holdings.

Such losses shrank to 2.51 billion yen from 15.37 billion yen a year earlier, it said.

Net profit for the first half of the 2002 business year came to 602 million yen, a positive turnaround from a loss of 8.26 billion yen in the same period a year earlier, according to the maker of heavy machinery, ships and aerospace machinery.