Board-Ansicht
Mix-Ansicht- Noch 'ne story... - JüKü, 25.05.2000, 14:42
Noch 'ne story...
... mit den entscheidenden Worten am Ende.
Quelle: http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/financial/japan-debt-nyt.html
Big Japan Contractor Asks Banks to
Forgive Billions in Debts
By STEPHANIE STROM
TOKYO, May 24 -- For the second time in just a few weeks, a
large Japanese company appealed to its banks today to forgive
billions of dollars in debts, intensifying pressure on Japan's stressed
financial system.
The decision by the Hazama Corporation, a general contractor, to
request 400 billion yen, or $3.7 billion at current exchange rates, rth
of debt forgiveness is yet another sign that the bad-loan problems of
Japanese banks are far from over.
On April 26, Sogo, a faltering Japanese retail company, astonished its
bankers by asking them to write off 639 billion yen, or roughly $6 billion,
in debts. That was the largest amount of debt forgiveness ever sought in
Japan, where the practice is far from standard.
The shock of Sogo's request was magnified a few days later when the
senior executive in charge of the retailer's restructuring plans was found
dead in his home, apparently having committed suicide.
On Tuesday, the company's lenders postponed a decision on the request
for debt forgiveness, although its largest lender, the Industrial Bank of
Japan, has said it is willing to do so.
Sogo's outstanding debts to the Industrial Bank -- 180 billion yen, or
$1.7 billion -- are roughly equivalent to a year's worth of operating profit,
according to James P. Fiorillo, senior banking analyst at ING Barings
here. Nor does the bank have sizable unrealized gains on its securities
portfolio to offset such a write-off.
"The question of whether to forgive these debts or not is a big one," Mr.
Fiorillo said.
Hazama's largest lender, Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, is apparently willing
to waive 90 billion yen of the construction company's loans, according to
Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan's leading business daily.
Changes in accounting standards are intensifying the pressure on troubled
companies. In the fiscal year that began on April 1, they must value their
real estate and securities holdings at market levels. The new rules also
strictly limit their ability to hide their debts in the accounts of affiliates,
requiring that they report their financial results on a consolidated basis.
Including Hazawa and Sogo, more than 10 large companies have asked
for debt relief this year. The greatest number seeking such forgiveness
have come from the construction industry, and analysts warn that many
more contractors are in similarly weak shape.
Like Hazama, they took on loads of debt to finance real estate purchases
in the 1980's, only to watch the value of that real estate plummet when
Japan's economic bubble burst.
But whether debt forgiveness will in fact help such ailing companies
regain their footing is a matter of much debate here. Unlike in the United
States, where creditors of distressed companies can force radical
changes on businesses in exchange for debt relief, Japanese creditors
have very little power to do that.
"It would be much better if these companies went bankrupt," said
Tadashi Nakamae, a prominent economist here."Debt forgiveness is only
going to prolong their problems."
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