NCB President Tadayo Honma Committed Suicide, Company Says
By Takahiko Hyuga and Masumi Suga


Tokyo, Sept. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Nippon Credit Bank Ltd. President Tadayo Honma was found dead yesterday in a hotel in Osaka after committing suicide, Nippon Credit spokesman Shinya Kuwaoka said.

Honma, 60, died less than a month after a group led by Softbank Corp. bought the bank from the government. A former Japanese central bank official, Honma was brought in by Softbank to help the bank expand into investment banking and Internet lending.

Osaka police declined comment on Honma's death.

Senior Managing Director Yoshinobu Kotera will serve as president until the bank selects a new president, Kuwaoka said. Kotera is the only director left from Nippon Credit's earlier management team.

``I am very surprised to be informed of his death,'' Softbank Chairman Masayoshi Son said in a statement released through his company's public relations office. ``I feel great regret that he died at this point as he was about to make a start (for the new Nippon Credit Bank).''

Softbank, Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Co. and Orix Corp., along with a group of other investors, bought the bank earlier this month and opened for business on Sept. 4. The sale of the bank, nationalized in 1998, marked the end of a government bank bailout that saw the nationalization of two nationwide banks.

Nippon Credit will take the name Aozora (blue sky) Bank in January. Its 12-member board includes Softbank's Son, former Microsoft Corp. Japan President Makoto Naruke, former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle and Lehman Brothers Inc.'s head of Japanese investment banking Michael O'Hanlon.

Nippon Credit expects profit of 55.9 billion yen ($523 million) in the current year through March.


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