Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), operator of the Japanese nuclear plant destroyed by the tsunami in March, forecast a second year of heavy financial losses even as it secured Y890bn (US$11.4bn) in government aid to help compensate victims of the nuclear disaster, the Financial Times reported. The utility on Friday projected a Y600bn net loss for the year to March 2012, its first earnings guidance since the triple meltdown occurred at its Fukushima Daiichi facility. If the estimate is realised, it would bring its losses since the tsunami to Y1,847bn.

Failed Japanese lender Takefuji said on Monday its debt holders approved a court-led rehabilitation plan, overcoming opposition from a group of overseas creditors who had sought liquidation of the company in hopes of achieving higher repayment rates, Reuters reported. Approval had been expected for the restructuring plan proposed by Takefuji, which filed for bankruptcy in September 2010, although the conflict with foreign creditors had attracted attention in Japan where such disagreements are rare.

The Japanese government is expected to approve financial assistance to Tokyo Electric Power Co. this week, after the embattled utility sought about ¥1 trillion, or about $13 billion, in public funds Friday to deal with compensation claims from the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, The Wall Street Journal reported. The government's objective is to keep the company afloat. Without public funds, Tepco would have to report a capital deficit for the July-September quarter, results of which are due by Nov. 14.

China's massive economic-stimulus program has supported near double-digit growth, but also Suncity Co , a condominium developer based in Japan's quake-hit northeast, said it filed for bankruptcy protection with the Sendai District Court on Monday with 24.9 billion yen ($326.5 million) in liabilities after sales plunged in the wake of the March disaster, Reuters reported. Investment firm FinTech Global said it would back Suncity's restructuring. Suncity, which employs 159 people, said that it plans to delist its shares from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Plowing ahead with plans to return the company to the stock market by the end of the next fiscal year, the head of Japan Airlines Corp. said Monday its low-cost joint venture can learn from--and avoid--painful mistakes made by other well-established U.S. and European carriers in past attempts to tap into the budget travel market, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. But JAL President Masaru Onishi said the Japanese government needs to do its part too.

South Canterbury Finance receivers have sold another chunk of the failed lender’s business but the return to the taxpayer has been kept confidential, The National Business Review reported. Japanese investment bank Nomura has acquired South Canterbury’s consumer, business and rural loan portfolios – the last of the so-called “good bank” of assets. The three loan portfolios have a combined book value of approximately $123 million, receivers Kerryn Downey and William Black of McGrathNicol said in announcing the deal today. However, the purchase price was kept secret.

As U.S. and European sovereign-debt concerns menace some of the world's biggest financial institutions, their Japanese counterparts are seen as less vulnerable given their small exposure, The Wall Street Journal reported. But other potential problems are growing, and could eventually end in a cascade, some industry observers say. "Japanese banks' exposure to European sovereign debts is small, so even in a pessimistic scenario, the risk of losses is limited," said Akira Takai, an analyst at Daiwa Securities Capital Markets, in a recent report.

A Japanese court on Friday approved a rehabilitation plan for failed consumer lender Takefuji, allowing the company to tie up with Korean consumer lender A&P Financial, according to Takefuji's website, Reuters reported. The plan, submitted by Takefuji's court-appointed trustee, was preferred to two competing schemes put forward by creditor groups. It faced opposition from creditors because of its structure, in which 1.5 trillion yen ($19 billion) of debt is held by 900,000 creditors who are either debt holders or customers asking for refunds of overcharged interest payments.

In a marathon six-hour session, more than 9,000 shareholders of embattled Tokyo Electric Power grilled management over alleged failures in handling the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in northern Japan, but refused to back a proposal demanding an end to the utility's use of nuclear power, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported.

Far away from the battle to contain the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, investors are increasingly edgy about a related issue: the fate of Tokyo Electric Power, the stricken plant’s operator, the International Herald Tribune reported. The physical damage from the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been so widespread that even conservative estimates of compensation claims amount to tens of billions of dollars — a burden that could render Japan’s largest utility insolvent.