Japanese trading house Marubeni Corp halved its annual profit forecast on Monday after plunging oil, copper and coal prices weighed on its resource assets and it booked an impairment charge for its grains unit Gavilon.
Like international oil majors and mining companies, Japan’s trading companies have been caught flat-footed by the rout in commodities, with oil down as much as 60 percent and copper falling about 25 percent since the middle of last year.
The trading house is now forecasting a net profit of 110 billion yen ($935 million) for the year ending on March 31, compared with a prior forecast of 220 billion yen that it reaffirmed in November.