Remy Cointreau attributed the profit drop to a 13.5 percent decline in cognac sales.

And it looks set to see its first full-year profit drop in 28 years.

The company's report of a one-third profit drop was calculated using international accounting standards.

Zurich Financial also announced a 13 percent "normalized" net profit drop, which does not include investment gains and losses.

The company is expected to face its first profit drop in eight years for financial year ending in March 2009.

And the profit drop came after £51 million of sales - £1 million UP on the same period last year.

The net profit drop was expected, as the company warned investors in June that earnings would be lower.

Goldman's most recent results revealed a £1bn hit and a quarterly profit drop of 53 per cent.

The profit drop was related to its continuing effort to reduce its vulnerabilty on loans to less developed countries.

Nynex has said the main reason for the profit drop is high costs, including labor.