Japan pension fund head sorry for huge losses

TOKYO: The president of a company at the centre of scandal in which $1.3 billion of pension fund cash was lost said Tuesday he was sorry but did not explain how he might get the money back.

AIJ Investment Advisers is accused of losing 109.2 billion yen of money that clients put away to fund their retirement after exaggerating how well the its investments were performing.

"I would like to apologise to all the members (of the pensions fund)," AIJ president Kazuhiko Asakawa told a parliamentary panel in his first public appearance since the scandal surfaced in February.

"I did not want to come back with losses, no matter what. I was confident of recouping the losses."

AIJ's operations were suspended in February when the allegations emerged, rocking a country whose rapidly ageing population is increasingly looking to private pension funds to help them through lengthy retirements.

Asakawa said he wanted to visit the homes of all investors and apologise, repeating that he had no intention to deceive them.

Investigators from the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission searched AIJ Investment Advisers' head office on Friday.

The watchdog said AIJ had incurred 109.2 billion yen in investment losses after accepting 145.8 billion yen in assets from pension funds.

AIJ has reportedly lied to clients for years, boasting of annual returns of up to 240 per cent and exaggerating its investment performance when striking deals with corporate pension funds.

AIJ now has only 8.1 billion yen in cash and deposits, the commission said.

The securities commission is looking into the possibility of filing a criminal complaint against AIJ, media reports said.

Source: MOLE