Atsushi Saito, president of the Industrial Revitalization Corp. of Japan, is confident the government-backed bailout agency has done more than revive ailing companies.
IRCJ "helped Japan avert a financial crisis" by purchasing ailing banks' debts, helping major banks grant debt waivers to troubled firms, and by reorganizing failing companies through restructuring, he said.
"The private sector alone could not turn around those companies. Because IRCJ came to acquire the loans, banks were able to write them off for troubled firms without worrying about opposition from shareholders, depositors and society," Saito, 67, said in an interview with The Japan Times. "If banks did not write off debts, would Daiei Inc. really have been able to rehabilitate itself? It probably would have been very difficult."