Five months ago, Carlos Ghosn, a multimillionaire executive credited with reviving Nissan Motors, hosted the wedding of his daughter Caroline on Naoshima, a rarefied island enclave of art and sculpture. Now, Ghosn is living in a Tokyo jail cell, unable to communicate with his daughter or any family member, as investigators explore possible financial wrongdoing related to his nearly 20-year career at Nissan, the New York Times reported.
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Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.’s credit rating was cut by Moody’s Investors Service, which cited the drugmakers’ ballooning debt level following its $62 billion acquisition of Shire Plc, Bloomberg News reported. Moody’s cut Takeda’s credit rating three notches to Baa2 from A2, according to a statement Monday. That’s still investment grade, and Moody’s said the outlook is stable based on expectations that Takeda will reduce its leverage through cost synergies and growth from key products.
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Nissan announced this morning that it planned to remove Mr. Ghosn as its chairman, saying an internal investigation had found that for years he underreported his salary by millions of dollars and committed other acts of “misconduct,” the International New York Times reported. Nissan said it was working with the Japanese authorities. According to news reports, prosecutors are preparing to arrest Mr. Ghosn. The developments could bring about a swift fall for Mr.
Toshiba Corp. said Thursday it would liquidate its U.K. nuclear business and sell its U.S. natural-gas business, taking a combined loss of nearly $1 billion. The moves are intended to clear away legacy problems after Toshiba went through waves of restructuring in the past three years that included the bankruptcy of its former Westinghouse Electric business in the U.S., The Wall Street Journal reported. The U.K. business—NuGeneration Ltd., known as NuGen—had sought to build what was planned as Europe’s largest new nuclear project in northwest England.
Toshiba is set to liquidate UK nuclear arm NuGen, according to people familiar with the company, dealing a hammer blow to plans to build a new plant at Moorside in Cumbria. The Japanese conglomerate, whose board is meeting on Thursday, is almost certain to take the decision to wind up NuGen after all avenues to sell the unit were exhausted, the Financial Times reported. “It is 80 per cent likely that Toshiba will decide at the board meeting to wind it up,” a source close to NuGen told the Financial Times.
Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Monday the central bank was aware that prolonged ultra-loose monetary policy could squeeze financial institutions' margins and potentially destabilize the country's banking system, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Given subdued inflation and uncertainty surrounding overseas economies, however, he said the BOJ needed to maintain its massive stimulus programme while keeping a watchful eye on the merits and costs of its policy.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is arranging 220 billion yen ($2 billion) in financial support for its aircraft unit, which has struggled to deliver its first passenger plane, national broadcaster NHK reported on Tuesday. Mitsubishi Heavy said in a statement that it was considering ways to resolve excess liabilities at the unit, but added it had not yet made any decisions, Reuters reported.
Toshiba has entered talks with Canadian asset manager Brookfield over the potential sale of its UK nuclear unit NuGen, which was slated to build the Moorside nuclear plant in Cumbria. The talks, which are at an early stage according to two people directly familiar with the matter, come after Toshiba’s negotiations with Korea’s state-owned Korean Electric Power Corp have dragged on, with an exclusivity period ending in July, the Financial Times reported.
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Hong Kong-based private-equity firm Baring Private Equity Asia has agreed to invest roughly half a billion dollars in Pioneer Corp., likely becoming the controlling shareholder, in another example of overseas investors taking a role in restructuring venerable Japanese brands, The Wall Street Journal reported. Pioneer, a struggling maker of car audio and navigation equipment, is trying to compete in the quickly changing market for internet-connected vehicles with autonomous-driving functions. In June, a group led by U.S.
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Suruga Bank Ltd.’s top executives resigned after an independent panel found that weak governance led to a loan scandal that has rocked the Japanese regional bank, Bloomberg News reported. Chairman Mitsuyoshi Okano, a member of the founding family and architect of the company’s aggressive lending strategy, stepped down after the panel said he bears the greatest responsibility for the debacle. President Akihiro Yoneyama was replaced by Michio Arikuni, the Shizuoka-based bank said in a statement Friday.
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