M'bishi Estate Q1 profit down 9.5 pct, keeps outlook

TOKYO, July 30 (Reuters) - Japan's Mitsubishi Estate (8802.T) posted a 9.5 percent drop in first-quarter operating profit due to lower apartment sales, and it kept its forecast for profit to rise by 5 percent in the full year.

The country's second-biggest developer, which owns the U.S. Rockefeller Group and dozens of office buildings in Tokyo's central Marunouchi business district, said its April-June operating profit came to 27.1 billion yen ($312.3 million) from 29.9 billion yen a year earlier.

For the financial year to March 2011, Mitsubishi Estate kept its operating profit forecast of 156 billion yen, slightly above a consensus estimate of a 153.8 billion yen profit in a poll of 19 analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Shares of Mitsubishi Estate's shares were down 3.8 percent after the results. (Reporting by Mariko Katsumura; Editing by Chris Gallagher)