Japan's Nomura eyes Lehman bid: report
TOKYO, Sept 6, 2008 (AFP)
The president of Japan's biggest brokerage house Nomura Holdings said
the company was considering buying a stake in troubled US investment
bank Lehman Brothers, a report said Saturday.
The move would be part of a plan to spend more than 200 billion yen
(1.9 billion dollars) on investment in US and European financial
institutions Kenichi Watanabe said in an interview in the Yomiuri
Shimbun.
Lehman "is one of the candidates in which we plan to invest,"
Watanabe said without elaborating.
A number of overseas banks and securities firms are said to be
considering bidding for a stake in Lehman, which suffered billions of
dollars in writedowns and credit losses amid the meltdown in US subprime
mortgages sector.
A news report from Seoul said the state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB)
had offered to buy a 25 percent stake in Lehman for more than four
billion dollars.
Japan's largest banking group, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, has
denied a news report that it was considering bidding for a stake in
Lehman, which will report third quarter results next week.
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