Quickbites

US co to buy Japan's debtA US investment company plans to buy up to 800 billion yen 6.1 billion worth of bad debts from Japanese banks in...

US co to buy Japan8217;s debt

A US investment company plans to buy up to 800 billion yen 6.1 billion worth of bad debts from Japanese banks in the year from April, a report said. Secured Capital, a major investor in real estate, is likely to put up around 100 billion yen for purchases, as bad debts were bought at several-to-20 per cent of book value, the Mainichi Shimbun said. Some 10 trillion yen of bad debts in book value will go on sale in Japan this year, with foreign securities firms and investors stepping up purchases, the daily said, quoting an estimate by a US investment bank.

The Finance ministry said in late December bad loans held by Japanese financial institutions rose to 28.08 trillion yen 213 billion at the end of September from 27.90 trillion yen six months earlier. Of the total, 4.35 trillion yen of non-performing loans needed to be written off, the ministry said. Experts estimate the real amount of bad loans in Japan a few Times larger than the official figure.

Microsoft may invest in cable service

Microsoft Corp. plans to invest 1 billion next week in cable giant Tele-Communications Inc. to speed development of television set-top boxes that link to the Internet, according to reports. A Microsoft spokeswoman said she could neither confirm nor deny the reports from CNBC and other services. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that TCI was in talks with Microsoft, Intel and other major technology companies over supplying up to 10 million network computers for the next generation of cable television in a deal that would be worth more than 3 billion.

Vietnamese workers laid off

Thousands of workers in Ho Chi Minh City have been laid off in the last three months due to business difficulties and the current financial crisis in southeast Asia, a report said. In the last quarter of 1997, thousands of people lost their job, bringing the total number of unemployed in the city to more than 40,000, the Vietnam News daily said quoting official figures from the municipal Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Service. Firms attributed the massive layoffs to a shrinking market with domestic demand slackening, increasing difficulties in winning orders and heavy debts.But many foreign joint ventures based in the southern city blamed the layoffs on the regional financial crisis which affected their parent companies in South Korea , Hong Kong, Taiwan and Thailand. The report quoted Parrish Yem, general director of Kollan, a Hong Kong company Which has sacked 600 workers, as saying that the region8217;s currency crisis pushed the parent company into financial woes. Another official from South Korea8217;s Juang Viet company said the collapse of some Korean industrial groups quot;has prompted the company to fall in debts.quot; quot;Last September, the company owed workers around 170,000 dollars in wages, leading to the dismissal of 2,000 workers.quot; she added.