TOKYO: Struggling Japanese auto giant Nissan issued a stark profit warning on Thursday, forecasting a huge loss of up to $5.3 billion in the 2024-25 financial year.

One of the top 10 automakers by unit sales, Nissan is heavily in debt, cutting jobs and like its peers now faces headwinds from US President Donald Trump’s vehicle tariffs.

“As part of the revised outlook, Nissan expects to report a net loss of 700-750 billion yen ($4.9 billion-$5.3 billion) for fiscal year 2024,” a company statement said Thursday.

“The revision is due to costs related to its ongoing turnaround plan, and other factors,” it added, weeks ahead of its full-year earnings announcement on May 13.

In February, the firm had projected a smaller net loss of 80 billion yen ($560 million) in the 2024-25 financial year that ended on March 31.

Before that it announced 9,000 job cuts worldwide and that it was slashing production capacity by 20 percent.

In March, its chief executive quit and investors have driven for the hills, sending Nissan shares down by more than 40 percent over the past year.

Since April, the United States has imposed a 25-percent surcharge on all imported vehicles.

“We are taking the prudent step to revise our full-year outlook, reflecting a thorough review of our performance and the carrying value of production assets,” new CEO Ivan Espinosa said Thursday in a statement.

Nissan has lurched from crisis to crisis in recent years as it was hit by the arrest of former boss Carlos Ghosn, the pandemic and the Ukraine war.

Then earlier this year, merger talks with its rival Honda collapsed, and Moody’s and others cut Nissan’s credit rating to junk.

“We now anticipate a significant net loss for the year, due primarily to a major asset impairment and restructuring costs as we continue to stabilize the company,” Espinosa said.

“Despite these challenges, we have significant financial resources, a strong product pipeline and the determination to turnaround Nissan in the coming period.”

AFP