Japan's Coincheck posts $433 million writedown in year to March

Reuters
Logos of Monex Group Inc and Coincheck are seen before their joint news conference in Tokyo, Japan April 6, 2018. REUTERS/Toru Hanai

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck Inc recorded an estimated writedown of 47.3 billion yen ($432.56 million) for the year ended March, its parent Monex Group Inc said on Thursday.

The extraordinary loss dragged Coincheck's estimated pretax profit to 6.3 billion yen on sales of 62.6 billion yen, Monex said in a statement, without giving further details of the loss.

The results were the first glimpse of Coincheck's earnings after the exchange was hit by a massive theft of digital money earlier this year, and offer a rare look at the finances of a cryptocurrency exchange.

Coincheck last month repaid about 46 billion yen ($431.6 million) to investors who lost assets in the $530 million heist, one of the biggest of digital money globally.

Monex, Japan's third-largest online brokerage, last week completed the 3.6 billion yen ($33.6 million) acquisition of Coincheck, in the most significant move yet by a major financial company into Japan's crypto industry.

($1 = 109.3500 yen)

(Reporting by Thomas WilsonEditing by Christopher Cushing)