International Business

Japan’s Insolvent Mortgage Lenders Will Collect Few Loans: The Ministry of Finance said in a report that nearly 95% of the loans extended by the nation’s seven insolvent home loan companies to major borrowers turned sour, with two-thirds becoming uncollectible. The companies lent $41.9 billion to their top 50 borrowers, of which 94.7% became “nonperforming,” according to the report. Those losses were mainly the result of falling land prices. The report shows that the mortgage companies lent heavily to real estate developers based in Osaka and Tokyo, where land prices skyrocketed during the property boom of the late 1980s.