Investing.com -- Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (NYSE:MUFG), Japan's largest lender, reported a 32% increase in quarterly net profit on Wednesday. This growth was driven by sales of cross-shareholdings and an increase in margins due to higher interest rates in Japan.
The bank has seen wider domestic loan spreads following three rate hikes since March 2024. The return of inflation has also prompted large Japanese corporations, which constitute the majority of MUFG's corporate clients, to take on loans for growth investments.
For the period from October to December, profit reached 490.74 billion yen ($3.16 billion). This is a significant increase compared to the 370.64 billion yen recorded a year earlier. These figures are based on Reuters' calculations using nine-month cumulative figures disclosed in a filing.
In the first nine months of the financial year, MUFG has achieved 99.9% of its annual profit guidance of 1.75 trillion yen. However, it's slightly behind the 1.841 trillion yen average annual estimate of 14 analysts polled by the London Stock Exchange Group (LON:LSEG).
MUFG, which owns about 23.5% of Wall Street bank Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), sold an additional 55 billion yen worth of its equity holdings during the October-December period. The lender has also agreed to sell a further 37 billion yen before the end of March 2027.
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