Dai Ichi Kangyo Bank Ltd

Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank Ltd. shares fell as much as 3.8% as Tokyo prosecutors searched its head office and Japan's minister of posts said the world's largest savings institution will suspend business with the bank. Prosecutors searched the bank for evidence that it loaned money to an alleged corporate racketeer without collateral. On Thursday, Japanese authorities arrested three executives and a former managing director of the bank on suspicion of making the loans.

Three more Japanese brokerages were accused Monday of making payoffs to a racketeer charged with blackmailing Nomura Securities Co. The lawyer for the reputed racketeer, Ryuichi Koike, 54, said his client's brother, Yoshinori, told him that Daiwa Securities Co., Nikko Securities Co. and Yamaichi Securities Co. had made the illegal payments. Both Koike brothers are under arrest. Spokesmen for the three Tokyo-based securities firms declined to comment.

Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank Ltd. of Tokyo has reached an agreement with Gemtel Corp. of Los Angeles to provide financing for the reconstruction of the historic Huntington Hotel. The amount of money the bank will provide was not disclosed. The cost of the project is estimated at $100 million. Lary Mielke, head of Gemtel Corp., said demolition of the 82-year-old hotel's main building could begin this month.

Sumitomo Bank Ltd. and Sakura Bank Ltd. said they are in talks to merge, a deal that would create the world's second-largest bank at nearly $940 billion in assets. The companies said no decision has been made on the timing of a merger and that no other financial institutions are involved in the negotiations. Japan's Nihon Keizai financial newspaper reported that the banks will probably merge in two years. The banks said they were not yet prepared to give any details.

Two of Japan's top commercial banks, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Ltd. and Sumitomo Bank Ltd., were implicated Monday in a widening bribery scandal that has shamed the powerful Finance Ministry. The scandal centers on allegations that two senior ministry bureaucrats were wined and dined by financial institutions in exchange for tipping them off about ministry inspections.

A Yamaichi Securities Co. executive was stabbed to death, and police were investigating whether the killing may be linked to a payoff scandal involving a racketeer. Koichiro Tarutani, 57, was manager of customer relations at Japan's fourth-largest brokerage, which recently pledged to sever ties with organized crime. The stabbing came three days after the resignation of Yamaichi's chairman, president and nine other executives as they took responsibility for the payoffs.

In a move to expand its Pacific Rim business, a large Los Angeles law firm Thursday acquired Djang, O'Kain & Joy, a small Orange County law firm that has strong ties with Asian businesses. Edward Djang, a principal in the Newport Beach firm, will head the new international practice of Adams Duque & Hazeltine. He and three other lawyers will be based in the company's Newport Beach and Los Angeles offices.

After three years of planning and debate, the demolition of the historic Huntington Hotel's main building is set to begin in Pasadena Monday. The developer of the property, Gemtel Corp. of Los Angeles, plans to replace the 82-year-old building with a similar-looking structure. Historical preservationists fought the project from its inception, saying it was wrong to destroy a landmark from Pasadena's Golden Era, when it was a resort for the rich and famous.

Prosecutors charged Nomura Securities Co., Japan's largest brokerage, and two former top executives with illegally compensating a gangster for $430,000 in trading losses. The charges were the first in the scandal, which has widened to include the rest of Japan's Big Four brokerages and Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank Ltd., the nation's third-largest bank.