SBI Holdings, Rakuten Group and Monex Group are among brokerages in Japan that also sold Credit Suisse’s riskiest bonds to retail investors, highlighting the widening fallout of these products in the country.
The operators of the nation’s three major online brokerages offered the Swiss lender’s Additional Tier 1 notes for a minimum purchase amount of $200,000, according to copies of the firms’ product explanatory materials seen by Bloomberg News. The documents obtained also raised questions over whether information over the risks associated with the product was properly disclosed to investors.
Switzerland’s decision in March to write down the bonds as part of a government-led rescue of Credit Suisse shocked investors in Japan, who bought around ¥140 billion ($1 billion) worth of the debt. Clients of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group’s securities venture with Morgan Stanley took the lion share of the hit. The debacle in a country that’s trying to push its citizens to invest more has prompted regulators to look into whether the firms properly explained the risks before selling the bonds.