Mitsubishi Estate logs Q1 profit fall, shares down

[Plex]

April-June operating profit down 9.5 pct at 27.1 bln yen

* Keeps annual profit forecast at 156 billion yen

* Sold 1,607 apartments so far this FY vs 1,534 a year ago

* Reduced unsold apartments by 34 pct from year ago to 1,441

* Shares down 4 pct in afternoon trade after results

TOKYO, July 30 (Reuters) - Japan's Mitsubishi Estate (8802.T) posted a 9.5 percent fall in operating profit in the April-June quarter, hit by falling apartment building prices, and its shares tumbled 4 percent.

Mitsubishi Estate, Japan's second-biggest developer after Mitsui Fudosan Co (8801.T), stuck to its forecast for profit to rise 5 percent in the year to March 2011.

Mitsubishi and other developers have recently succeeded in running down inventories of unsold apartments left over from the financial crisis, but have done so amid tough price competition, squeezing profit margins.

Mitsubishi, which owns the U.S. Rockefeller Group and dozens of office buildings in Tokyo's central business district, said its April-June operating profit came to 27.1 billion yen ($312 million), down from 29.9 billion yen a year earlier.

Revenue fell 10 percent to 189 billion yen.

For the financial year to March 2011, Mitsubishi Estate kept its operating profit forecast of 156 billion yen, slightly above a consensus estimate of a 153.8 billion yen profit in a poll of 19 analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Mitsubishi Estate group companies sold 1,607 apartments in the three months to June, up from 1,534 a year ago, the company said on July 22 in its quarterly business update. That helped reduce the number of unsold apartments by 34 percent to 1,441.

After the earnings results, Mitsubishi Estate shares were down 4 percent at 1,219 yen, underperforming a 1.9 percent fall in the benchmark Nikkei average .N225.

Reuters