Softbank group to be selected to buy NCB - Jiji
TOKYO, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Japan's Financial Reconstruction Commission (FRC) will announced on Thursday that a consortium comprised of Softbank Corp , Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Co Ltd and Orix Corp has been chosen as the preferred buyer of Nippon Credit Bank (NCB), Jiji news agency reported on Tuesday.
No immediate comment from FRC was available.
NCB was placed under state control in December 1998 after collapsing under the weight of bad loans made during the latter 1980s, when Japanese property prices soared in value only to plummet in subsequent years.
A Japanese consortium is widely expected to be chosen to purchase NCB following the decision to sell another failed bank, the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan, to a foreign consortium headed by Ripplewood Holdings LLC of the United States.
NCB and LTCB were two of the only three so-called long-term credit banks in Japan, created to bankroll the nation's post-war reconstruction by channelling cheap loans to major corporations.
The Softbank-led consortium will pay between one billion and 10 billion yen to purchase all NCB shares, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun financial daily said last week.
To bolster NCB's capital base, the Softbank group will inject an additional 100 billion yen into the bank, while the government will inject 200 billion yen in public funds, the newspaper said.
Softbank has already made a serious push into banking. It announced plans last month to set up an online bank branch with a leading regional bank, and to form a bond trading venture with U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers. Softbank is also in talks with Fuji Bank , one of nine Japanese banks with branches nationwide, about setting up an online banking venture.
Softbank, a leading investment company in Internet-related businesses, said on Tuesday it filed a shelf registration with the Finance Ministry to issue up to 50 billion yen in corporate bonds.
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