Japan: Asahi to postpone financial results due to fallout from cyberattack

Asahi Group will postpone its financial results due to the fallout from a cyberattack that disrupted production of Japan's most popular beer, Market Screener reported.

The company said in a statement on October 14 that it will delay disclosure of results for the third quarter of the fiscal year ending Dec. 31.

This follows a ransomware attack on Sept. 29, which disrupted ordering and shipment processes at its operations in Japan.

The incident also affected access to accounting-related data, Asahi said, leading to delays in financial closing procedures. Asahi partially restarted beer production and shipments on Oct. 6 and stated Tuesday that ensuring supplies reach customers is its "top priority."

For now, it is manually processing orders and shipments.

"While the company is making every effort to restore the system as quickly as possible, a timeline for full recovery cannot be provided at this time," it said.

Asahi added that it's reviewing the impact of the system disruption on its financial performance and will announce a new date for its earnings release, the timing of which depends on when the systems will be fully restored.

Analysts at Bernstein expect the cyberattack to cause a "lingering hangover" even in the best-case scenario.

In a note last week, they reduced full-year earnings-per-share projections for the company by 13%, lowered the stock's price target, but kept an outperform rating.