Kokudo Corp., which controls the Seibu Railway Co. group, will sell its head office building and land to help reduce Seibu's interest-bearing group liabilities, company officials said Tuesday.
The company will hold an auction July 29 for the prime real estate, located in the Harajuku district in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, the officials said.
Industry sources estimate it will sell for about 20 billion yen.
The Seibu Railway group held about 1.4 trillion yen in interest-bearing group debts at the end of March 2004 and aims to bring it below 1 trillion yen in four years under a restructuring plan mapped out by the group's reform committee of outside experts.
The group has been mired since October in a scandal involving false financial statements.
Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, the former Kokudo chairman, was arrested in March. He is suspected of instructing his aides to underreport stakes held in Seibu Railway by major shareholders, including top shareholder Kokudo, to meet the Tokyo Stock Exchange's listing criteria and stay on the exchange.