A growing number of lawmakers are pushing for greater control over the Bank of Japan, just 14 years after the central bank first won its independence, as a strong yen and runaway deficits darken Japan's economic prospects, The Wall Street Journal reported. The moves come as politicians across the spectrum, and many economists, complain that the BOJ isn't acting aggressively enough to combat the country's persistent deflation, while mammoth borrowing limits the scope of fiscal policy to boost growth.

Fortress Investment Group (FIG) and Nomura Real Estate Holdings Inc. are buying Japanese property as a record 700 billion yen ($9 billion) of commercial buildings are set to be sold over the next three years to repay debt, Bloomberg reported. About 364.6 billion yen worth of properties will be offered by next year with the rest sold through 2014 as special servicers that oversee properties tied to defaulted loans sell buildings to repay lenders, according to Moody’s Investors Service. Morgan Stanley Real Estate funds and K.K.

Two of Japan's biggest corporate wipeouts of the past decade are expected to emerge from bankruptcy in the coming months. Yet the resurrections of Ashikaga Holdings Co. and Japan Airlines Co. stand in contrast, The Wall Street Journal reported. Lender Ashikaga is a classic "zombie company," taking nearly a decade to return to life on the stock market. JAL, on the other hand, will return less than three years after it became the biggest collapse ever by a nonfinancial-services company in Japan.

A group of Elpida Memory bondholders opposes Micron Technology's offer to buy the bankrupt Japanese chipmaker and has reached out to South Korea's SK hynix and U.S.-based GlobalFoundries to ready a potential alternative plan, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said, Reuters reported. SK hynix, which had dropped out during the second and final round of bidding for Elpida, is interested in the memory chipmaker's Taipei operations, while GlobalFoundries is interested in its Hiroshima operations, said the source, who asked not to be identified.

A group of bondholders of bankrupt Japanese semiconductor maker Elpida Memory Inc have threatened to thwart the auction of the company's assets if trustees agree to a reported selling price of 150 billion yen ($1.9 billion), Reuters reported. In a filing to a Tokyo district court on April 27, the bondholders said they could submit a rival reorganisation plan if the bankruptcy trustees agreed to a low-ball bid that would "unintentionally transfer great value to the winning sponsor".

China's Hony Capital plans to sell or outsource the operations at Elpida Memory's Hiroshima DRAM plant to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) if its bid for the bankrupt Japanese chipmaker is successful, the Nikkei business daily said on Tuesday. The scenario involving Hony, which is bidding along with fellow private equity firm TPG Capital, and China's top chipmaker, was drawn up by the Chinese government, the Nikkei said citing a banking source, and is one of a few being mentioned surrounding the takeover of Elpida.

Elpida Memory Inc.’s bankruptcy is fueling concern the company could be a burden to an acquirer, with shares of SK Hynix Inc. and Micron Technology Inc. declining on takeover speculation, Bloomberg Businessweek reported. Investors aren’t keen on a full or partial takeover by Hynix or Micron because “they would need funds to buy Elpida’s assets, and even after an acquisition, they would need a lot of money to keep operations going,” said Yuichi Ishida, a Tokyo-based analyst at Mizuho Investors Securities Co.

A few years ago, the densely built-up coastal region around this port was called Panel Bay because of its concentration of factories making the sophisticated flat-panel screens that were symbols of Japan’s manufacturing prowess. But now the area has become a grim symbol of its industrial decline, the International Herald Tribune reported.

For a bankrupt company, Elpida Memory Inc. is getting a lot of attention as the subject of a billion-dollar chess game among the biggest technology companies, Bloomberg reported. They don’t necessarily covet Elpida’s debt, workforce or even most of its business. They just want the part of its business that makes chips for Apple Inc.’s mobile devices -- and, even more, they want to make sure their competitors don’t get that. Elpida was Japan’s largest maker of dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips.

Toshiba Corp. has been removed from the list of prospective sponsors to back the rehabilitation of elpida Memory Inc., it was learned Thursday, the Daily Yomiuri Online reported on a Jiji Press story. As a result, the Japanese chipmaker may be acquired by a foreign company. Micron Technology Inc. of the United States, SK Hynix Inc. of South Korea and a foreign-affiliated investment fund remain on the list of possible sponsors, informed sources said.