Japan

When a policy is applied for more than four years, and consistently fails to produce the intended result, it is tempting to declare it a failure. Critics of Japan’s economic stimulus declare exactly that. They are wrong. So-called Abenomics has not failed, and it should be sustained, not abandoned, the Financial Times reported. Critics of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic policy, which aims to combine monetary and fiscal stimulus with structural economic reforms, make a simple case. Abenomics began in the spring of 2013.

Trading in Takata Corp shares was suspended on Thursday after a report that the Japanese airbag maker at the heart of the car industry's biggest-ever recall is considering a bankruptcy plan that will create a new company and ringfence its liabilities, Reuters reported. The Nikkei business daily reported Chinese-owned car parts maker Key Safety Systems (KSS), the company's preferred bidder, would sponsor the turnaround plan by injecting 200 billion yen ($1.8 billion) and helping create a new operating company.

Potential rescuers of Japan's Takata Corp have extended talks, already in their 14th month, for a deal to take over the air bag maker at the heart of the auto industry's biggest safety recall, people briefed on the process said. Car-parts maker Key Safety Systems Inc (KSS) and Bain Capital LLC are the preferred bidder for Takata, whose faulty air bags have been blamed for at least 16 deaths worldwide, Reuters reported.

Toshiba Corp filed twice-delayed business results on Tuesday without an endorsement from its auditor and warned its very survival was in doubt, deepening a prolonged crisis at the Japanese conglomerate, Reuters reported. "There are material events and conditions that raise substantial doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern," Toshiba said in announcing bigger than previously estimated losses for the nine months through December.

Japanese investors ramped up their selling of French government debt to a record pace in February as bondholders shuddered at polls showing rising support for eurosceptic candidate Marine Le Pen in the country’s upcoming presidential elections, the Financial Times reported. Money managers in Japan dumped ¥1.58tn (€13.4bn) of French bonds in the fourth consecutive month of net sales as the country’s long-running favourite for the presidency, François Fillon, was engulfed by an embezzlement scandal.

Toshiba’s chances of remaining a listed company are bleak as the crisis-hit industrial group scrambles to meet a third accounting deadline, analysts warn. The warnings come as executives among Toshiba’s creditors — an 80-strong group of big banks and regional lenders — have been told to prepare for the possibility that the company will fail to produce audited earnings numbers for the October-to-December quarter of 2016 when they are due on April 11, according to two people close to the company.

Shares in Toshiba Corp rose on Monday morning after a report that U.S. unit Westinghouse Electric Co could file for bankruptcy protection as early as Tuesday and is seeking support from South Korea's Korea Electric Power Corp, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Toshiba's shares were last up 0.5 percent at 224 yen after earlier rising as high as 232 yen, against the backdrop of a broader market downturn. Read more.

Toshiba’s biggest creditors are split over its future strategy as pressure mounts for a swift Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing by Westinghouse, the troubled Japanese conglomerate’s US nuclear subsidiary, the Financial Times reported. People briefed on the situation said talks between Toshiba, its main lenders and other stakeholders are focused on whether it is possible or even desirable for Westinghouse to be placed under bankruptcy protection before the end of the Japanese group’s financial year on March 31.

Shares in Takata sank on Wednesday amid reports the troubled airbag maker might let its customers decide on how to restructure the company as it attempts to survive a crisis over its exploding airbags, the Financial Times reported. The Japanese company may have little choice other than to let carmakers decide on its fate, which could involve filing for bankruptcy through court as part of its restructuring process, Bloomberg said citing an unnamed source familiar with the matter.

Since its founding in 1873 as Japan’s first maker of telegraph equipment, Toshiba has survived a litany of challenges, from the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923, to having its factories bombed into rubble during World War II, to the drubbing of the Zune music player it co-developed with Microsoft. Now the conglomerate may be undone by four nuclear power plants under construction in the American South, Bloomberg News reported.