Japan

NIS Group Co. fell as much as 39 percent in Tokyo after the Japanese consumer and business lender said its liabilities may exceed assets after Incubator Bank of Japan Ltd. went bankrupt, Bloomberg reported. NIS has 9,720 shares in Incubator Bank, which declared bankruptcy last week, NIS said in a statement on Sept. 10. NIS also has 6.7 billion yen ($79 million) of debt in Incubator Bank. NIS fell 33 percent to 12 yen at 9:19 a.m. in Tokyo, after earlier declining 39 percent to 11 yen.

The Japanese government Friday announced a Y915 billion stimulus package aimed at helping the export-driven economy deal with domestic deflation, a surging yen and a slowdown in overseas markets, Dow Jones reported. The plan, which draws on existing funding to avoid the need for yet more debt, has already been dismissed by economists as too small to have much impact given the scope of Japan's economic malaise. The wide-ranging program includes incentives and regulatory reforms to prop up employment, consumer spending and corporate investment at home.

The Incubator Bank of Japan, a small, unlisted lender that specialises in small business loans, was expected to file for bankruptcy protection on Friday, Japan's financial regulator said, Reuters reported. Depositors will be protected for up to 10 million yen ($119,200) in principal, the regulator said. The Bank of Japan said it expected no adverse impact on the country's banking system from the small lender's failure and financial markets took the news in stride.

Lehman Brothers Holdings' Japanese subsidiary is one of the first major units to get going with its liquidation process, after it got court approval for its debt repayment plans, the Nikkei business daily reported. Lehman Brothers Japan Inc got approval for liquidation from the Tokyo district court and secured support for the plans from a majority of its creditors on Wednesday, and is expected to start repaying its debt by late November, the paper reported.

Seven months after Japan Airlines Corp. filed the country's biggest nonfinancial bankruptcy petition, the carrier unveiled a restructuring plan that accelerates a big reduction in its work force and cuts unprofitable routes more deeply than expected, The Wall Street Journal reported. The carrier plans to refinance its roughly 300 billion yen, or about $3.5 billion, in debt by the end of March, according to a person familiar with the matter, ensuring months of protracted negotiations with its main lenders in the coming months.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Monday approved a rehabilitation program for Japan Airlines which is undergoing a state-backed restructuring, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported on an Agence France-Presse story. Transport Minister Seiji Maehara informed Kan about the program a day before the struggling carrier submits it to the Tokyo District Court, government officials said. Maehara told reporters that Kan agreed to the program, but he stopped short of revealing details.

Worried by a sharp slowdown in the economy and a strong yen, Japan's government is considering another round of stimulus to stoke growth as measures enacted during the recent financial crisis begin to expire, The Wall Street Journal reported. But policy makers face a daunting challenge balancing any new spending with their pledges to curb the country's debt, which is already approaching twice the size of Japan's gross domestic product.

Japan Airlines Corp, the debt-ridden group undergoing a state-backed rehabilitation process, will cut its workforce by 19,133 by the end of March 2015, the Kyodo news agency reported, citing a final draft of JAL's rehabilitation plan. The draft said JAL will expand its previously announced retirement program and shed 8,339 jobs through fiscal 2014 ending March 2015, the Japanese news agency said. JAL's earlier plan was to cut about 16,000 jobs during the current fiscal year started April, the news agency said.

Investors are understandably scared of the sovereign debt crisis unfolding in Europe. Amid their angst, however, they are ignoring a more likely, and significantly larger, debt catastrophe that is about to hit the nation with the second-largest economy in the world — Japan. Two decades of stimulative, low-interest-rate fiscal policy have made Japan the most indebted nation in the developed world, and as new Prime Minister Naoto Kan recently said, in his first address to Parliament, that situation is not sustainable, Seeking Alpha reported.

Debt-ridden Japan Airlines Corp and the state-backed turnaround body overseeing its rehabilitation said the firm's capital plans, including negotiations for new financing, will be not be finalized until September or later, the Nikkei business daily reported. JAL and the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp of Japan (ETIC) said they will be able to submit a rehabilitation plan to the Tokyo District Court by the end of August, as scheduled, the paper reported.