HSBC in race for £1.5bn Japan stake

GLOBAL banking giant HSBC is said to be in talks to buy a 33% stake worth 300bn yen (£1.5bn) in Japanese consumer finance firm Takefuji, but faces a tough battle with the likes of Citigroup and US buyout fund Ripplewood.

According to the Nihon Keizai newspaper, HSBC is one of five prospective buyers. Ripplewood, the first foreign firm to buy a Japanese bank, declared its hand last week.

'We have been approached by a large number of foreign and Japanese financial institutions,' Takefuji's incoming-president, Megumu Motohisa, said last month.

Takefuji, which has a stock market value of 1.1 trillion yen, said in a statement that no formal decision had been made on a suitor and it could not comment on any change in ownership.

HSBC also declined comment.

News of HSBC's interest comes just a day after it was revealed it had agreed to pay up to $1bn (£570m) for a 20% stake in China's fifth-largest lender, the Communications Bank.