Aozora Bank

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Aozora Bank, Ltd.
株式会社あおぞら銀行
Number of employees
1,359 (Bank only) [5]
Websitewww.aozorabank.co.jp

Aozora Bank, Ltd. (株式会社あおぞら銀行, Kabushiki-gaisha Aozora Ginkō, lit. "Blue Sky Bank") is a Japanese commercial bank that offers service in 19 branches in Japan and in 2 overseas representative offices (as of July 2012).[2]

History

Aozora Bank is the successor of the

Bank of Joseon
in Japan.

In December 1998, NCB was brought under government control in order to deal with its extraordinary amount of bad debt left over from the crash of the Japanese asset price bubble in the early 1990s: at the time, the bank was approximately ¥270 billion in debt.

An investor group led by

Shinsei Bank
, the contemporaneous successor of the Long-Term Credit Bank, which wrote off nearly three times as much and was criticized in political circles for doing so.

The sale of NCB to Softbank was viewed as a precedent for the licensing of Sony Bank, Seven Bank and other new banking platforms in Japan.[6]

The bank was renamed "Aozora" in 2001. Softbank initially planned to make Aozora an investment bank for internet-related companies. However, Softbank was unsuccessful in obtaining the cooperation of the

Financial Services Agency, and sold its 49% stake to Cerberus Capital Management in September 2003 for ¥101 billion.[7] Aozora launched operations as a retail bank on April 1, 2006, and opened its first new branch in Nihonbashi
on November 20.

Aozora Bank was listed as the No. 1 unsecured creditor to Lehman Brothers with about US$463 million in bank loans to the investment bank as it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September 2008. By comparison, the second largest unsecured creditor was Mizuho Bank with $289 million, and third largest Citibank (Hong Kong branch) with $275 million.

On December 16, 2008, Aozora Bank announced that it had ¥12.4 billion exposure to the

ponzi scheme.[8]

On April 25, 2009, Aozora Bank and

2008 financial crisis.[10]

Aozora acquired Japan Wealth Management Securities in 2011, merging it with existing subsidiary Aozora Securities in 2012.[11]

In January 2013, Cerberus announced that it would sell most of its stake in Aozora, cutting its total share from 58 percent to 7.7 percent.[12] Cerberus sold this last portion of its stake to Barclays for distribution to other investors in August 2013, ending Cerberus's shareholding in Aozora.[13]

Locations

Aozora's head office is located in the Kudan area of Chiyoda City, Tokyo, near Yasukuni Shrine.

The bank has retail branches in Chiba, Fukuoka, Hiroshima, Kanazawa, Kyoto, Nagoya, Osaka (Namba and Umeda), Sapporo, Sendai, Takamatsu, Tokyo (Ikebukuro, Jiyugaoka, Nihonbashi, Shibuya, Shinjuku and Ueno) and Yokohama.

Aozora also has representative offices in New York, Singapore, Seoul, Jakarta and Shanghai, and financing subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom and the United States.

See also

References

  1. ^ Corporate History. Retrieved on June 26, 2007.
  2. ^ a b Company Profile. Retrieved on June 26, 2007.
  3. ^ Directors and Auditors. Retrieved on February 5, 2013.
  4. ^ Corporate Brochure 2006, Page Three Archived September 26, 2007, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved on July 2, 2007.
  5. ^ Corporate Brochure 2006, Page Six Archived September 26, 2007, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved on July 2, 2007.
  6. ^ a b c Strom, Stephanie (June 7, 2000). "INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS; Softbank Makes Deal for Nippon Credit". The New York Times. Retrieved April 19, 2018 – via NYTimes.com.
  7. ^ NYT, Ken Belson (July 1, 2003). "World Business Briefing - Asia: Japan: Bank Stake Sale". The New York Times. Retrieved April 19, 2018 – via NYTimes.com.
  8. ^ Statement on Aozora’s Exposure to Madoff Securities Archived January 14, 2009, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved on December 16, 2008.
  9. ^ Shinsei Bank, Aozora Bank launch merger talks-Nikkei[permanent dead link] Shinsei, Aozora banks in talks. Retrieved on May 23, 2009.
  10. ^ Shinsei, Aozora Scrap Merger; Government Vows More Oversight[permanent dead link].
  11. ^ "Corporate History - AOZORA BANK". www.aozorabank.co.jp. Retrieved April 19, 2018.
  12. ^ Editorial, Reuters (January 7, 2013). "UPDATE 4-Cerberus to sell Aozora Bank stake in $1.7 bln offering". reuters.com. Retrieved April 19, 2018. {{cite news}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  13. ^ "サーベラス、あおぞら銀の全株式売却 バークレイズ証券に". nikkei.com. August 6, 2013. Retrieved April 19, 2018.
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