Panasonic flags first profit drop in eight years, EV battery costs bite

TOKYO (Reuters) - Panasonic Corp warned profit this financial year would fall for the first time in eight years as costs to boost battery output rise and it moves to overhaul some businesses amid investor pressure to find new avenues of growth.The Japanese conglomerate expects operating profit for the year through March 2020 to slump 27 percent to 300 billion yen (2.10 billion pounds) from a year earlier. That is well below analyst expectations of a 12 percent decline, according to Refinitiv.The..