The Financial Services Agency on Thursday gave the go-ahead for a joint venture between major trading house Mitsubishi Corp. and UBS AG of Switzerland to manage real-estate investment trusts, Mitsubishi said.
Mitsubishi is the first major Japanese trading house to extend into real-estate investment trusts -- mutual funds whose yield springs from property cash flows such as office building rents, hotel room fees and sales at shopping malls. Certificates entitling holders to such yields can be traded on the market.
Mitsubishi Corp. UBS Realty Inc., capitalized at 500 million yen, is owned 51 percent by Mitsubishi and 49 percent by UBS. Mitsubishi has already acquired three shopping malls in Sendai, Tokyo and Kawasaki to securitize prospective profits. It will try to sell such certificates to pension funds and other institutional investors.