TMCnet News
SBI Holdings to sell 40% stake in eHomes to its CEO+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TOKYO, April 20_(Kyodo) _ SBI Holdings Inc. said Thursday that it will transfer its entire 40 percent interest in eHomes Inc. the same day to SBI CEO Yoshitaka Kitao, making him the leading shareholder in the Tokyo-based building inspection agency. The move follows the latest revelations about alleged financial data falsification by eHomes and SBI holdings says that it will buy back the shares from Kitao if police investigations clear the building inspector of wrongdoing and are found to have caused no damage to its ability to maintain its business license. It was reported Wednesday that police suspect that eHomes had inflated its capital to 50 million yen instead of the actual 23 million yen by faking a share issue of 27 million yen shortly before it won a government certification as a building inspector in December 2001. Investigators believe the company did that because the current system makes a firm with a capital of at least 50 million yen eligible for conducting checks on buildings with a floor space of up to 10,000 square meters. On April 13, SBI Holdings, a provider of asset management and other financial services, purchased a 40 percent stake and Kitao bought a 9 percent stake in eHomes in hopes of expanding its property-related business. The financial misconduct allegations involving eHomes that have surfaced mark a new twist in the unfolding scandal concerning condominium and hotel buildings constructed with bogus quake-resistance data that came to light late last year. The company was blamed for failing to detect structural flaws in such fake data produced by Hidetsugu Aneha, a disqualified architect who is at the center of public attention in the building scam. |