Household spending in Japan shrank for a third month running in April, suggesting a sluggish end to spending in the first quarter of 2018 carried on into the second, the Financial Times reported. Spending fell 1.3 per cent year on year in April, sharpening from a fall of 0.7 per cent in March and defying expectations of a rebound, per a median estimate of 0.8 per cent growth from economists surveyed by Reuters.

Household spending in Japan shrank for the second straight month in March, adding to the case that private consumption may have contracted in the first quarter, the Financial Times reported. Spending fell 0.7 per cent year on year in the third month of 2018, with growth of 0.1 per cent in February revised to a fall of 0.9 per cent. The latest reading also ran counter to expectations, with a median estimate from economists polled by Reuters predicting a rise of 1.1 per cent.

It wasn’t so long ago that Suruga Bank Ltd. was seen as a model for how Japanese lenders can survive in an era of rock-bottom interest rates and weak loan demand. The regional bank was hailed for generating the best loan margins in the country, thanks to its focus on individual borrowers who were shunned by its risk-averse competitors. Now, Suruga has come unstuck for giving credit to investors in failed real estate investment projects, prompting Japan’s financial regulator to investigate the company’s lending practices, Bloomberg News reported.

Japanese equity funds posted their biggest net outflow since 2001 as investors regained their taste for risk assets in the past week and directed cash to emerging market equities and junk bonds, the Financial Times reported. The moves come as fears of a trade war eased and investors instead expressed optimism about strong earnings growth for US companies, which have begun reporting results for the first three months of the year.

Three bidders, including two new players, have submitted resolution plans after lenders called for fresh bids in Essar Steel Ltd.’s insolvency process, Bloomberg News reported. These include a joint venture between ArcelorMittal India and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp, Nu Metal & Steel Pvt. Ltd, in which JSW Steel is an investor, and the Vedanta Group, according to two people in the know who spoke to BloombergQuint on the condition of anonymity. Of the three, ArcelorMittal-Suitomo JV had participated in the earlier bidding as well.

Toshiba’s $18bn sale of its prized memory chip business as it struggles to survive a financial crisis has shattered a long-standing taboo of corporate Japan, prompting companies to consider sales of assets once thought sacred. The cultural change, say M&A bankers, is poised to produce a rapid acceleration of asset sales, as private equity buys more deeply into the Japanese market and as corporate chiefs stop feeling they are losing face by divesting businesses or stakes that are no longer worth keeping, the Financial Times reported.

Westinghouse Electric Co LLC, Toshiba Corp's nuclear services business, has made an agreement with its creditors that will clear the company's path out of bankruptcy, according to three people familiar with the matter. The deal will divvy up cash from the $4.6 billion proposed sale of Westinghouse to Brookfield Business Partners, an affiliate of Canada's Brookfield Asset Management, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

The Japanese economy is picking up more and moving toward the central bank’s 2 percent inflation target, though only gradually, government data released today showed, the Wall Street Journal reported. The core consumer-price index, which excludes volatile fresh food prices, rose 0.9 percent in November from a year earlier, a slightly faster pace than an 0.8 percent increase in October. Another index used by the central bank to assess the state of inflation, which excludes both fresh food and energy, rose 0.3 percent from a year earlier, compared with a 0.2 percent rise in October.

Japan’s JFE Holdings Inc and India’s JSW Steel Ltd are lining up a joint bid with a private equity firm for the assets of India’s insolvent Bhushan Steel Ltd, two industry sources familiar with the matter said. Under the plans, JFE would set up a special purpose vehicle with the two partners to manage the assets, Reuters reported. JFE would hold a majority stake in the vehicle, while JSW Steel would operate Bhushan Steel’s plants, said the sources who did not want to be named as the details are not public. JFE already owns a 15 percent stake in JSW.

Toshiba Corp.’s plan to raise more money may bring in vocal investors more willing to take an active role in the electronics maker’s affairs, Bloomberg News reported. David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, Daniel Loeb’s Third Point and other investors have agreed to buy 600 billion yen ($5.4 billion) worth of newly issued shares, an extra cushion of cash on top of the already-agreed 2 trillion-yen sale of the Tokyo-based company’s chips business to a group led by Bain Capital.