NOVA Sees Red Again

, NOVA has posted a loss of 2.5 billion yen.

A summary of their earnings can be found in this Nikkei BP Net article [in Japanese].

The nitty gritty

1. NOVA posted a loss of 2,495,000,000 yen, blaming a series of incidents in the news since February which resulted in fewer new students and lower sales.
2. Sales were 57 billion yen, down 18.3% compared to last year, and 4.3 billion yen lower than forecast. Operating losses grew to 2.6 billion yen.
3. NOVA's ordinary loss was 1.2 billion yen, but the sale of investment securities and gains on foreign exchange meant that losses were reduced compared to last year. NOVA also reported losses of 924 million yen due to closing and merging branches. According to this PDF report, they reduced the number of branches to 925 from 994.
4. Sales in their language school business were 50.5 billion yen, down 15.1% compared to last year. During the same period, the number of students fell 12.1% to approximately 418,000.
5. Sales in their study abroad business fell 9.6% to 1.36 billion yen. The number of participants fell 15.5% due to affiliated universities accepting fewer students. Sales in language materials and other products fell 31.6% to 4.34 billion yen.
6. For FY2008, NOVA is forecasting sales of 52.8 billion yen, down 7.4%. However, with cost-cutting measures and other improvements, they expect ordinary income to be 315 million yen with a net profit of 673 million yen.