The president of the state-backed Industrial Revitalization Corp. of Japan boasted Wednesday that the entity is reviving cash-strapped companies at an "extraordinary speed."

"Compared with corporate turnaround funds in the private sector, we are working at an extraordinary speed," IRCJ President Atsushi Saito said at a news conference.

According to Saito, foreign corporate reconstruction funds currently doing business in Japan are considered successful if they turn around one or two cases a year.

He brushed aside criticism that most IRCJ clients are small companies.

IRCJ, which started operating in May 2003, has chosen 18 companies and their affiliates for bailouts thus far.

Saito also indicated that some major companies may become IRCJ clients in the future.

"Now 70 to 80 companies are consulting with us, and sometimes large ones have come," he said.

Asked about the prospects of revitalizing struggling retail giant Daiei Inc. and scandal-hit Mitsubishi Motors Corp., however, Saito declined comment.

The names of the two firms have been floated as possible large-lot clients for IRCJ.

"Should such companies and major creditor banks decide to come to us, we will respond in a calm manner," Saito said.

But he said IRCJ is not in a position to voluntarily offer to bail out such companies.