Space race

摘要

This week an unwelcome record was set by Orix Asset Management, part of Orix, a Japanese financial-services company. In starting a three-month ban on signing new property deals, it became the first asset-management company specialising in real-estate investment trusts (REITS) to be punished by the Financial Services Agency (FSA), Japan's financial regulator. The firm's offences included overpricing properties, by taking a seller's valuation at face value, and failing to check whether the buildings that it bought had been constructed legally.