Japan

Morimoto Co., a property developer, filed for protection from creditors with 162 billion yen ($1.7 billion) of debt, bringing the number of bankruptcies among publicly traded companies in Japan to a postwar record, Bloomberg reported. The bankruptcy is the second-largest in Japan this year following Urban Corp.’s filing on Aug. 13. The company’s filing with the Tokyo District Court pushed the total in 2008 to 30, the most since World War II, based on information from Teikoku Databank Ltd., a bankruptcy research firm.

Japanese builder Daiwa House Industry Co. said it may bid for failed property developer Urban Corp as it seeks opportunities to buy real estate assets brought low by the financial crisis, Reuters reported yesterday. Daiwa, at the head of a consortium of companies that includes Chuo Mitsui Trust Holdings Inc., is currently in the lead to be chosen to take over Urban's assets and oversee its restructuring, a source familiar with the deal told Reuters. Urban filed for court protection from creditors on Aug 13 with 256 billion yen ($2.67 billion) in debt.

Administrators of the European arm of failed investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. are meeting with creditors in London on Friday to sketch out the group's assets and liabilities, The Straits Times reported today. PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which was drafted in as administrator to Lehman Brothers International (Europe) to unravel the complex web of the firm's tens of thousands of trades and attempt to claw back funds for creditors, said it will provide an update after the meeting.

Japan will offer up to 10 trillion yen ($105 billion) to the International Monetary Fund to bailout nations reeling from the global financial crisis, The Nikkei newspaper reported Thursday. Japanese officials have repeatedly said Tokyo is ready to provide some of its ample cash for IMF loans if the multilateral group doesn't have enough funds for bailouts. But the ministers have not given an amount. The Nikkei, the nation's top business daily, said the amount is likely to be about 10 percent of Japan's $1 trillion foreign currency reserves.

Groups related to collapsed Allco Finance Group warned today the failure of Allco may have triggered defaults on debt facilities, The Australian reported today. Real estate managers Rubicon Japan Trust, Rubicon America Trust and Rubicon Europe Trust Group said they were in talks with various lenders about the implications of Allco Finance's situation. All three entities were suspended from trade. Rubicon America Trust said that defaults on two debt facilities may have been triggered by Allco Finance's collapse, although it was not clear in the documentation for the loans.

The International Monetary Fund has “record levels of liquidity” to combat the global economic crisis and debate over new ways of supplementing its coffers was not “today’s problem”, according to John Lipsky, IMF first deputy director. With the Fund facing unprecedented calls on its resources, some policymakers have raised concerns about its continued capacity to react to demands such as its $16.5 billion loan to Ukraine and $2 billion loan to Iceland, the Financial Times reported yesterday.