The brokerage arm of Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group on Tuesday flagged potential losses of around $300 million at its European subsidiary related to an unnamed U.S. client, Reuters reported. The potential loss does not have any material impact on the business capability of the securities arm, or its European unit, Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Holdings Co Ltd said in a statement. It did not name the U.S. client. However, the revelation comes after global banks, including rival Nomura Holdings, were bracing for the fall-out from the downfall of hedge fund Archegos Capital.
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Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. joined a growing list of global financial firms to take a hit from the forced unwinding of bets by Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management in one of the biggest margin calls of all time, Bloomberg News reported. Japan’s largest bank warned of a potential $300 million loss related to a U.S. client, a hit that’s linked to Archegos. Lenders are just starting to tally the carnage stemming from the liquidation of more than $20 billion of positions linked to Hwang’s New York-based family office, which has roiled stocks from Baidu Inc. to ViacomCBS Inc.
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Japanese insurer Tokio Marine Holdings Inc said on Tuesday it currently expects no material impact on its results for the fiscal year starting next month as a result of its exposure to the fallout of Greensill Capital’s collapse, Reuters reported. Tokio Marine made the forecast in a statement the day after its shares fell 5.6% following a Bloomberg report that the Japanese insurer faced a larger-than-expected exposure to the insolvent British finance firm.
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A Tokyo-based restaurant chain operator on Monday filed a damages suit against the Tokyo metropolitan government for ordering business hours be reduced as a public safety measure during the coronavirus pandemic, Nikkei Asia reported. Global-Dining claims the order "is illegal and unconstitutional as it infringes the right to freedom of business" in the first such lawsuit anywhere in Japan. The company runs dozens of restaurants including the Gonpachi "izakaya" Japanese-style pubs.
Japan's central bank is poised to carry out monetary policy adjustments designed to increase its flexibility and make life easier for financial institutions, sources told Nikkei. During its two-day policy meeting from Thursday, the Bank of Japan will be looking at measures that would allow long-term interest rates to move in a slightly larger range of about 0.25%, plus or minus, versus 0.2% now. The idea is to maintain low interest rates while encouraging the market to function normally, giving financial institutions a chance to increase revenue.
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Japan is temporarily raising tariffs on U.S. beef imports as volumes have exceeded levels agreed to between the two nations for the fiscal year ending on March 31, Japan’s agriculture ministry said on Wednesday, Reuters reported. From Thursday, the tariff will rise to 38.5% from 25.8% for 30 days through April 16, marking the first time the safeguard measure has been imposed on U.S. beef imports since August 2017. Japan imported a total of 242,229 tonnes of U.S. beef by early March, exceeding the maximum 242,000 tonnes set under the Japan-.U.S.
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Japan needs to double the nearly $700 billion it’s already budgeted in extra spending to ensure a recovery from the pandemic, says an influential ruling party lawmaker who helped shape the country’s economic strategy, Bloomberg News reported. Kozo Yamamoto, who played a key role in crafting the fiscal and monetary framework known as Abenomics and is readying new proposals for Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, says Japan needs another big dose of fiscal medicine that’s as ambitious as the aid bill just passed in the U.S.
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Brexit drove a shift in Japanese firms out of the U.K. and toward continental Europe, a report shows, Politico reported. The number of Japanese firms based in the U.K. fell 12 percent between 2014 and 2019, from 1,084 to 951, with most of the drop occurring during the politically tumultuous period following the Brexit referendum in June 2016.
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Over more than a decade, the Japanese central bank, uniquely among its global peers, has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into local equities and now owns about 7% of all the shares traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s first section. With stock prices near a 30-year high in Japan, shares bought by the central bank years ago have surged in value, the Wall Street Journal reported. Instead of winning praise for its investing acumen, though, the Bank of Japan faces growing pressure to stop acting like the Tokyo whale and find ways to spread the wealth.
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A Japanese real estate developer that pulled off a $1.9 billion employee buyout with U.S. private equity firm Lone Star is under pressure from a leading creditor to consider filing for bankruptcy protection, the Financial Times reported. Unizo, which owned a portfolio including hotels and central Tokyo office space, was at the centre of a 2019 bidding war between SoftBank-backed Fortress and other potential buyers including Blackstone and local property companies, having attracted high-profile interest in a market where real estate assets are only occasionally sold as a bloc.