Japan: fund manager Yoshiaki Murakami acknowledges insider trading

Photo: Japan: fund manager Yoshiaki Murakami acknowledges insider trading

Japan: fund manager Yoshiaki Murakami acknowledges insider trading

But he was widely viewed with suspicion by many among the old-guard business establishment as just being out for money and representing dubious foreign investors, and not interested in proper Japanese management practices.

Murakami denied in a nationally televised news conference Monday that he intended to commit a crime when he bought a large number of Nippon Broadcasting System Inc. shares with advance knowledge that Internet startup Livedoor Co. would make a takeover bid for the radio network.

He said he chanced upon that information and was not fully aware that his actions may constitute insider trading.

Livedoor executives, including its flamboyant former president, Takafumi Horie, are embroiled in a separate criminal case, centered on falsifying is own earnings reports and those of a subsidiary. Horie was arrested earlier this year on charges of violating securities exchange regulations.

Japanese media reports said Murakami could be arrested later Monday.

Murakami, a 46-year-old former government bureaucrat, said he had signed a document with Tokyo prosecutors admitting wrongdoing, and he expected to be charged.