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.

This weekend marks three months since an earthquake and tsunami swept a large swathe of Japan. The disaster only gets worse for the Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, owner of the ill-fated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. This week, investors tripped over themselves to sell their shares, dragging the stock price to its lowest-ever level before a bit of a rebound, The Wall Street Journal reported in a commentary.

Moody's Investors Service warned Tuesday that it is placing Japan's sovereign debt ratings under review for a possible downgrade, as measures to reduce a yawning budget deficit are increasingly hamstrung by political infighting and an opposition bent on ousting the current government, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The foreign chief executive of embattled Tokyo Star Bank is likely to be asked to step down, people familiar with the discussions said on Monday, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Robert M. Berardy, a rare foreign CEO at the helm of Japanese bank, will likely be asked to leave after creditors gain control of the bank from its current owner--private equity fund Advantage Partners LLC--according to the people. Masaru Irie, one of directors of the bank and its chief administrative officer, will likely be promoted to the bank's president, the people said.

Slow decision-making by the government is weighing on the credit ratings of Tokyo Electric Power Co., analysts at Moody's Investors Service said Thursday, adding that any forced debt waiver by the embattled utility's creditors could result in it being downgraded to junk status, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Discord within the Democratic Party of Japan-led government over how to share the burden of compensation related to the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has increased uncertainty over Tepco's ability to pay off its debt, the analysts said at a briefing.

Japan’s economy shrank more than estimated in the first quarter after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami disrupted production and prompted consumers to cut back spending, sending the nation to its third recession in a decade. Gross domestic product contracted an annualized 3.7 percent in the three months through March, following a revised 3 percent drop in the previous quarter, the Cabinet Office said today in Tokyo. The median forecast of 23 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for a 1.9 percent drop. Economists typically define a recession as two consecutive quarters of contraction.