Sorry I lost nearly £1bn in pension pot says boss

The head of a Japanese investment company accused of losing almost £1 billion in clients’ pension funds apologised, saying he intends to repay losses that were concealed for years.
By The Newsroom
Published 28th Mar 2012, 07:00 BST

AIJ Investment Advisors’ President Kazuhiko Asakawa made the apology in a committee hearing at Japan’s parliament over allegations the company lost 109.2 billion yen (£813m) in pension funds in derivatives trading.

Asakawa said he ordered the company’s financial reports to be falsified to conceal the losses which began soon after the company was set up in 2002.

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“I was confident that we would be able to regain the losses and repay investors,” he said. “How to do that, I can’t really answer,” he admitted.

“To clarify, I never intended to deceive”, he said.

Much of the money overseen by Asakawa’s company came from small pension funds which could go bankrupt due to the losses.

Pension funds, which comprise a huge share of the national wealth, are a matter of huge political concern. In 2008, the disclosure that the Social Insurance Agency had lost track of public pension records linked to 64 million claims ignited a scandal that severely eroded public confidence in the country’s ability to support its growing elderly.