Mitsubishi Motors seeks 56% sales growth by 2013

Mitsubishi Motors Corp aims to announce by the end of 2010 how it plans to get billions of dollars in preferred shares off its balance sheet, and will unveil a growth plan for a 56 percent jump in vehicle sales at the same time, its president said on Tuesday.

Japan's sixth-biggest automaker has suffered a sharp slide in sales in recent years and many analysts have dropped its stock from their coverage due to the unresolved issue of more than 400 billion yen ($4.4 billion) of unredeemed preferred shares issued mostly to the Mitsubishi group.

President Osamu Masuko, who has been tight-lipped about how Mitsubishi Motors would deal with the shares, said converting them to common stock, selling them through a third-party allocation, buying them back, or a combination of these steps were the only options available to the company.

"I want to be able to talk about it by the end of the year," said Masuko, who took his post in 2005 after a successful career at sister trading firm Mitsubishi Corp.

He added, however, that the shaky global economy and financial markets could get in the way.

"If these conditions continue, it might be difficult to wrap up a decision by year-end," he told Reuters in an interview.

Converting all the preferred shares to common stock would result in a massive dilution of Mitsubishi Motors shares, adding more than 3.5 billion shares to the current 5.5 billion.

In part to prepare for the possibility of releasing at least some of the preferred shares, Masuko said he also aimed to communicate the company's roadmap for growth by the end of 2010 to entice potential buyers.