Nissan losses deepen

Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn is known as "Le Cost Killer"

Losses at struggling car company Nissan have deepened.

Japan's second biggest car company posted a net loss of 684bn yen ( $6.3bn) in the year to March, up sharply from the 28bn yen loss it posted last year.

Nissan says losses were so big because they wanted to bear all the costs of restructuring its business in one go.

It is the seventh out of the past eight years that Nissan has made a loss, and analysts had actually expected its losses to be worse.

The company hopes to be making a profit by March next year, having already instigated a massive overhaul of the way they do business.

Nissan's plan is to cut 21,000 jobs

For the year ahead, Nissan expects operating profit to rise by just over a third to 110 billion yen ($1bn), even though they expect sales to remain flat.

"The 110 billion operating profit versus their flattish sales forecast would have to imply that Nissan is quite confident in their ability to cut costs and increase profitability," Shu Nung Lee, auto analyst at Lehman Brothers said.

Make way for Le Cost Killer

Nissan is now 36.8% owned by France's Renault and its boss, previously of Renault, Carlos Ghosn, is known as "Le Cost Killer".

Nissan's restructuring has sent shockwaves through a Japanese society, where people are used to having jobs for life.

Nissan's plans call for 21,000 job losses, five plant closures in Japan, a one trillion yen cut in costs, asset sales and a halving of its suppliers.

While Nissan is confident it will return to profit this year, many analysts have chosen to reserve judgement until it launches four new models later this year.