Unwinding of Japan's web of corporate cross shareholding likely: report

Tokyo

FOR years, there had been speculation that Japanese financial institutions and business firms were about to unwind their webs of mutual cross shareholdings, thereby freeing up capital while at the same time increasing the "free float" of their shares traded on stock markets.

Wholesale disposal of cross holdings was said to be imminent after the collapse of Japan's bubble economy at the end of the 1980s and again at the time of the pro-reform government of former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi in the early 2000s. But it never really happened.