TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese companies outside the banking sector were sitting on more than $2.6 trillion in cash and deposits at the end of June – a warchest fattened by a strong yen that is driving another record year of outbound acquisitions.

Bankers say telecoms firm Softbank Corp’s (9984.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) $20 billion bid for Sprint Nextel Corp (S.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) of the United States, announced on Monday, may be an outlier in Japanese finance – a deal so bold it could only be pulled off by the firm’s audacious chief, Masayoshi Son.

But that deal has put an exclamation mark on the emergence of Japanese companies as aggressive overseas buyers, a trend that has gathered pace over the past two years and shows no signs of abating even as Europe’s debt crisis drags on and as global growth wanes.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Investors should brace for three or four months of jittery markets due to uncertainty over support for Spain and the looming “fiscal cliff” threatening the United States economy, BlackRock Chief Executive Laurence Fink said in an interview on Saturday.

Fink, head of the world’s largest money manager overseeing $3.6 trillion in assets, said he was still bullish on U.S. equities but warned that the stock market could lose 5 to 10 percent in a correction in the final months of the year.

“The next three to four months we are going to probably have greater uncertainty and the market may test itself one more time,” Fink told Reuters during a trip to Tokyo, host to this week’s semiannual meeting of the International Monetary Fund.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Less than three years after it collapsed into bankruptcy, Japan Airlines Co Ltd (JAL) (9201.T: Quote, Profile, Research) made a modest market return on Wednesday, with its shares closing 1 percent above the price set for the world’s second-biggest IPO of the year.

The $8.5 billion initial public offering had been priced conservatively to take account of the airline industry’s tough outlook, with full-service carriers such as JAL under threat from low-cost operators in an already weak economy.

JAL’s stock opened around 3 percent above the IPO price of 3,790 yen, but soon levelled off to close 1.1 percent higher at 3,830 yen – ranking it alongside Air China Ltd (601111.SS: Quote, Profile, Research) as Asia’s second-biggest airline by market value behind Singapore Airlines Ltd (SIAL.SI: Quote, Profile, Research). Trading volume topped 40 million shares, worth around $2 billion.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Shares of Japan Airlines Co Ltd (9201.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) rose about 2 percent on their return to the stock market on Wednesday as investors flocked to the once-bankrupt carrier due to attractive valuations and industry topping profits.

JAL’s stock was trading at 3,865 yen as of 0016 GMT, above the initial public offering price of 3,790 yen, and valuing the company at about $9 billion – ranking it alongside Air China Ltd (601111.SS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) as Asia’s second-biggest airline by market value. The stock first traded at 3,810 yen on the main board of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Everything about JAL’s collapse and revival has been big.

Sept 19 (Reuters) – Before Kazuo Inamori, founder of electronics firm Kyocera Corp, was brought in as chairman of bankrupt Japan Airlines in 2010 he avoided flying on the carrier because he thought the service was bad.

“I really hated JAL,” the 80-year old Inamori, who is now chairman emeritus, told Japanese television in June. “JAL was arrogant and didn’t care about its customers.”

As much as JAL has focused on slashing costs, it has also sought to close the service gap with local rival All Nippon Airways – putting in new seats, revamping in-flight menus and installing electronic toilet seats in some business and first class cabins.

TOKYO (Reuters) – It will likely take Nomura Holdings (8604.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) another 2-3 years before it can generate significant profits in the Asia-Pacific region it has positioned as key to its growth outside Japan, the brokerage’s new CEO said in an interview on Tuesday.

Koji Nagai told Reuters he expected investment banking fees to expand in Asia in step with the region’s leading economies, which are expected to account for half of global output by 2050, up from about 30 percent now.

“The fee pool is by far bigger in America right now, but there is no question that Asia will grow,” said Nagai, 53, who took over as chief executive last month after his predecessor quit over an insider trading scandal.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan Airlines (9201.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) set the pre-market price for its initial public offering at the top end of the range, raising $8.5 billion for state coffers in a sign of solid demand for the world’s second-largest IPO this year.

Japan Airlines, which has emerged from its 2010 bankruptcy with a clean balance sheet and industry topping profits, set the IPO price at 3,790 yen ($48.55) per share on Monday after gauging investor demand at 3,500 to 3,790 yen.

At the pre-market price, the company will raise 663 billion yen ($8.49 billion), nearly double the 350 billion yen injected by a Japanese government-backed fund following the airline’s failure with $25 billion in debts in early 2010.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s financial regulator handed Nomura Holdings the lightest possible sanction on Friday for its involvement in a string of insider trading cases, marking a key turning point in a costly scandal for the country’s largest investment bank.

The so-called business improvement order from the Financial Services Agency (FSA) will require Nomura to report regularly on its efforts to shore up compliance after it admitted to leaking information on three share offerings it underwrote in 2010.

The sanction stopped short of a more damaging order to suspend some operations for weeks – a penalty that had initially been seen as a possibility in this case – and moves Nomura closer to the resolution of a scandal that triggered the resignation of Chief Executive Kenichi Watanabe last week.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan Airlines said on Friday it expected to raise about $8.5 billion in an initial public offering next month, nearly doubling the investment of a state-backed fund that injected capital into the carrier following its bankruptcy in 2010.

The IPO is set to be the world’s second-largest this year after the $16 billion offering of social networking pioneer Facebook FB.N.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange on Friday gave the green light for a relisting of Japan Airlines’ (JAL) stock on September 19, less than three years after the former national flag carrier collapsed under the weight of a bloated cost base and $25 billion in debt.

TOKYO, Aug 2 (Reuters) – Japan Airlines has given up on the idea of securing stable shareholders to hold at least 10 percent of its stock ahead of its listing because such a move would breach industry rules, Chairman Emeritus Kazuo Inamori said.

The airline has been sounding out trading houses and other business partners as potential investors ahead of its roughly $8 billion initial public offering slated for next month, sources with knowledge of the matter have told Reuters.

But Inamori, who oversaw JAL’s restructuring following its bankruptcy in early 2010, said he has been told that soliciting specific investors before the listing would run afoul of brokerage industry rules.