Hitachi Heads for a $3.6 billion dollar loss-

It's the first day of the last month of the fiscal year for Japanese companies, and the cat is starting to poke it's head out of the bag. Hitachi announced yesterday that they expect their losses for the fiscal year to be double what they had previously predicted. According to an article on the Financial Times website (url below), they are now expecting the loss to hit $3.6 billion. They have increased their job reduction goal from 16,350 to 20,930 world wide, and will be getting out of unprofitable businesses. They are also targeting major reduction in procurement costs, which will serve to push the problem on to their current suppliers. We can expect that many of the Hitachi suppliers will see their business yanked and moved to China. A logical move, but one that will only make the economic situation in Japan even more intractable.

You have to wonder if the publically traded companies like Hitachi are coming forward with bad news of this magnitude, what lies behind the curtain? The companies that don't have the same global visibility may have deeper, darker secrets waiting to be exposed come the next share holder meetings in a few months.

FT.com | News and Analysis | World Article
- posted by tempusmaster @ 11:26 PM