It seems fittingly symbolic that the new owner of Nippon Credit Bank (ncb), a disgraced, nationalised lender, will be a consortium led by Softbank, a whizzy Japanese Internet conglomerate. In the febrile atmosphere of Japan's Internet boom, hopes are soaring that the likes of the youthful Softbank can add fizz to Japan's feeble economy. Even the Wall Street Journal had put aside its squeamishness about the widely leaked deal and applauded the spectacle of a "New Japan" company preparing to remake an old one. Sad to say, there is nothing new about Softbank's plans for the bank, whose sale was announced on February 24th. In fact, they seem dangerously old-fashioned.
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