Japan’s premier agricultural bank, Norinchukin, is planning a complete overhaul of its investment strategy after massive losses on its overseas portfolio.
Unlike Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and other big regular banks, Norinchukin relies primarily on its securities portfolio worth about ¥60 trillion ($384 billion) to generate profit. Its lending business is far smaller than rivals and it doesn’t have investment banking operations. The pressure to make money, however, is no less urgent than for the listed peers, since it has to keep generating returns for the farming cooperatives which own it.
That meant going overseas to escape Japan’s environment of negative interest rates. The firm poured funds into U.S. treasuries, only to be saddled with losses when the Fed’s tightening triggered higher foreign currency funding costs. Norinchukin had not counted on U.S. interest rates remaining elevated for this long.