Shinsei Bank,Limited

I still believe the "gaijin" did the right thing.

AMATEUR hour was over. When Shinsei Bank was founded in 2000 from the husk of a failed Japanese lender, it was meant to show the country how to run a bank to international standards. Unfortunately, it has done just that. Japanese banks escaped big writedowns and even bought large stakes in Western banks. But Shinsei ploughed headlong into all three of global banking’s booby traps: consumer lending, subprime mortgages and the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers.

Proof that banking reform in Japan is becoming a reality came yesterday with the flotation of Shinsei, which ended its first day of trading in Tokyo at a 58 per cent premium to its issue price.

There were no sellers of the rescued bank's shares for the entire morning trading session. The shares eventually closed at Y827 after an issue price of Y525, taking the bank's market capitalisation through the trillion yen mark to Y1,124bn.