For anyone who managed to get to rampART a couple of weeks ago for the screening of the documentary 'Enron - the smartest guys in the room', the latest corporate scandle revolving around the internet trailblazer Livedoor should be a familiar one.
Livedoor's offices were raided late on Monday for suspected illegal securities trading and other wrongdoing, and Japanese newspapers carried fresh allegations on Wednesday that the internet firm cooked the books to hide losses. Sounds familiar?
The mass-circulation Yomiuri Shimbun said Livedoor allegedly falsely reported 1,4-billion yen ($12-million) in parent-level recurring profit for the year to September 2004 by transferring profits from affiliates just like Enron.
The creative 'enronomics' were made to hide a true financial state of Livedoor - a loss of one billion yen.
The firm was founded by the flamboyant 33-year-old Takafumi Horie, a T-shirt-wearing dropout who built an internet empire and had been heralded as the face of a new corporate Japan - just like Enron only a few years ago. Indeed, the Livedoor probe has raised fresh concerns about corporate governance and fraud.
"The market is still struggling with the selling pressure spurred by the Livedoor incident," said Hideyuki Suzuki, a strategist at SBI Securities. He added, however, that the current selling spree is likely to be short-lived as the problems at Livedoor are company specific, with market attention soon likely to refocus on making obscene profits.
"Now, the market is in panic, but we will see it settle down after a while," he added.
Panic it certainly did, the Tokyo Stock Exchange was forced to close trading early on Wednesday for the first time ever inorder to prevent a system crash from heavy trading volumes as investors took fright at claims of fraud.
We have yet to see what, if any, effect this will have on London's trading today.
The mass-circulation Yomiuri Shimbun said Livedoor allegedly falsely reported 1,4-billion yen ($12-million) in parent-level recurring profit for the year to September 2004 by transferring profits from affiliates just like Enron.
The creative 'enronomics' were made to hide a true financial state of Livedoor - a loss of one billion yen.
The firm was founded by the flamboyant 33-year-old Takafumi Horie, a T-shirt-wearing dropout who built an internet empire and had been heralded as the face of a new corporate Japan - just like Enron only a few years ago. Indeed, the Livedoor probe has raised fresh concerns about corporate governance and fraud.
"The market is still struggling with the selling pressure spurred by the Livedoor incident," said Hideyuki Suzuki, a strategist at SBI Securities. He added, however, that the current selling spree is likely to be short-lived as the problems at Livedoor are company specific, with market attention soon likely to refocus on making obscene profits.
"Now, the market is in panic, but we will see it settle down after a while," he added.
Panic it certainly did, the Tokyo Stock Exchange was forced to close trading early on Wednesday for the first time ever inorder to prevent a system crash from heavy trading volumes as investors took fright at claims of fraud.
We have yet to see what, if any, effect this will have on London's trading today.
