TOKYO -- Japanese companies are unloading their cross-held shares.
At the end of fiscal 2015, corporate Japan held 46.5 trillion yen ($464 billion) worth of shares in other companies, down nearly 8 trillion yen from a year earlier. Given that the Topix index tumbled about 13% during the 12 months, the Nikkei estimates that 1.06 trillion yen worth of sales amounted to the unwinding of cross-shareholdings.
