 The Citigroup headquarters in New York. U.S. banking giant Citigroup has announced a 10.8 billion-U. S. dollar takeover bid for Japan's third-largest brokerage firm as it tries to make a comeback in one of the world's richest financial markets, The New York Times reported on Tuesday. The report quoted Douglas Peterson, the chief executive of Citigroup's Japan unit, as saying that Citigroup wanted to buy a controlling stake of at least half of the shares of Nikko Cordial. Citigroup already owns 4.9 percent of the firm, which had faced delisting from the Tokyo Stock Exchange after an accounting scandal. If successful, the takeover would be the largest ever of a Japanese brokerage firm by a foreign company, said the report. Citigroup's move would be the latest in a string of acquisitions of Japanese companies by overseas buyers that has underscored the extent to which Japan's once tightly closed economy has opened to the world. Acquiring Nikko would create a new financial giant in Japan with the know-how and financial power to challenge longtime market leaders in Japan like Nomura Holdings and Mizuho Financial Group, according to the report. And it would also give Citigroup a bigger piece of the market for managing the huge pool of private savings in Japan, valued by some at up to 17 trillion dollars, the report said. 2007-03-07
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