Tepco May Take More Fukushima Losses in Earnings

[marmar]

(Bloomberg) Tokyo Electric Power Co. reports earnings for the April-June period today, its first release of a quarterly financial statement since an earthquake and tsunami crippled its Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.

The utility known as Tepco may book a 500 billion yen ($6.4 billion) one-time loss to pay for compensation to those affected by the nuclear disaster, the Nikkei reported today, without citing anyone. Tepco in May announced a loss of 1.25 trillion yen, the biggest for a non-financial company in Japan, for the year through March to take charges for the accident. Tepco is due to announce its earnings at 3 p.m. local time.

The company may face as much as 11 trillion yen in claims after the March 11 quake and tsunami caused three reactor meltdowns, Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch unit said in March. Radiation leaks forced 160,000 residents to evacuate. The utility may post an extraordinary loss of 126 billion yen for the quarter, MF Global FXA Securities said in a report.

“Nobody thinks the compensation payments will be less than 1 trillion yen, but Tepco won’t book charges like that because it would bankrupt the company,” said Reiji Ogino, an analyst at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley in Tokyo, who spoke before the earnings announcement. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-08/tepco-may-announce-more-fukushima-losses-in-quarterly-earnings.html