Bridgestone Corp. Profit Up

TOKYO November 2, 2005; Bridgestone Corp., which last month settled its tire recall dispute with Ford Motor Co., said Wednesday its group net profit for the first nine months of the year nearly doubled and raised its full-year earnings projection.

Japan's largest tire company said its net profit from January through September grew to 159.36 billion yen ($1.36 billion) from 80.50 billion yen a year earlier on growing sales and on gains from returning the proxy portion of public pension funds to the government.

Group sales in the nine-month period rose 9.2 percent to 1.921 trillion ($16.4 billion).

The company didn't disclose results for the July-September quarter alone.

Bridgestone lifted its earnings outlook for the year through December to 180 billion yen ($1.54 billion) from the previously estimated 163 billion because it can finalize costs related to lawsuits dating back to the 2000-2001 recalls of Firestone tires on Ford vehicles. Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire is a unit of Bridgestone.

Bridgestone and Ford settled their tire recall dispute in mid-October, with Bridgestone agreeing to pay Ford $240 million.

Because of the settlement, Bridgestone said it will get a return on some of the taxes it already had on its books anticipating recall-related lawsuits.

The company left unchanged its group sales projection for the year at 2.6 trillion yen ($22.3 billion).

In its tire business division, Bridgestone boosted sales by 9 percent and operating profit by 8 percent, making up for the higher prices of raw materials by expanding overseas sales. Sales in non-tire operations also grew 9 percent, it said.

Last month, Bridgestone Firestone and Ford reached a settlement related to the tiremaker's recall a few years ago. At least 271 people were reported killed and hundreds more injured in accidents involving Firestone ATX and AT tires, and the maker recalled 6.5 million tires.

The settlement effectively ended a five-year dispute between Bridgestone and Ford, which saw the reputation of its Explorer sport utility vehicle damaged because it was involved in most of the accidents. Bridgestone blames the accidents on defects in some Ford vehicles, while Ford maintains the tires were entirely at fault.