Shinsei said it now expects recurring profit for the year ending this month to total Y20bn, well below the Y67bn it had originally forecast. This is the second time Shinsei has cut its forecast for the current business year.
The bank said profit of about Y56bn from the sale of its headquarters will lift its net profit for the year to Y65bn, up from the Y50bn it had previously forecast.
Shinsei has not, however, mentioned the interest expressed late last year by Christopher Flowers and his JC Flowers buy-out group, which was seeking to become the biggest shareholder in Shinei with an offer to buy about one third of the bank. It has all gone quiet on that front while Flowers fights other fires in the region and in Europe.
The FT reported last month, for example, that China Investment Corporation, the Chinese sovereign wealth fund, is near an agreement Flowers to put about $4bn (£2bn) into a new fund to invest in ailing financial institutions. Meanwhile, Flowers edges closer to embattled UK life assurer Friends Provident.
What we want to know is what drives Morgan Stanley’s seemingly unshakable faith in the value of Tokyo commercial property. As Bloomberg noted, Morgan Stanley has invested more than $18bn in the Japanese real estate market in the past decade and continues to buy property in the country even after reporting a fourth-quarter loss of $3.56bn, the first in the investment bank’s history.
In April, Morgan Stanley bought hotels from ANA for Y281bn in the country’s biggest real estate acquisition.
Last month, Morgan Stanley sold a 438-room Tokyo hotel to the Government of Singapore Investment Corp. for about Y80bn, added Bloomberg, citing a person with knowledge of the transaction.
[…] But back to Morgan Stanley, who certainly has been buying up a noticeable amount of Tokyo property. The Financial Times asks: What we want to know is what drives Morgan Stanley’s seemingly unshakable faith in the value of Tokyo commercial property. As Bloomberg noted, Morgan Stanley has invested more than $18bn in the Japanese real estate market in the past decade and continues to buy property in the country even after reporting a fourth-quarter loss of $3.56bn, the first in the investment bank’s history. […]