Tokyo Stock Exchange

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. plans to make a takeover bid to gain 100% of USJ Co., operator of the Universal Studios Japan theme park in Osaka, a person familiar with the plan said. Goldman Sachs, with a 41% stake, is preparing to acquire the remaining shares by March 31, the person said. The remaining 59% would be worth about 50 billion yen ($560 million) at Tuesday's closing price on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Tokyo Stock Exchange President Taizo Nishimuro said Tuesday that negotiations for an alliance with the New York Stock Exchange were "very close" to completion and that he expected an announcement to be made as early as today. Nishimuro and NYSE Group Inc.'s chief executive, John Thain, have met several times during the last week about forging greater cooperation between the two exchanges.

The New York Stock Exchange and the Tokyo Stock Exchange announced an alliance Wednesday that extends the NYSE's global reach and could lead to an eventual combination of the world's two largest financial markets. The broad, nonexclusive agreement announced by NYSE Chief Executive John Thain and TSE President Taizo Nishimuro allows the two stock markets to cooperate on joint developments such as financial products, mutual listings and technology.

The future of the American Stock Exchange looked bright when Ira Koondel arrived in 1969. A bull market was in full swing and the Amex was packed with traders. So many people worked on the main floor that the exchange had to open an upper level with bleacher seats a few years later. Another bull market is roaring today, but life at the Amex is quite different. Traders have slowly left or been fired. The bleachers are all but abandoned.

Spooked by a police probe into one of Japan's best-known Internet entrepreneurs, investors swamped the Tokyo Stock Exchange with sell orders today, driving the market down and forcing the world's second-largest exchange into an embarrassing early close. The exchange's woes and the massive market drop rekindled questions about the durability of Japan's economic recovery, which had enjoyed a giddy run-up in stock values over the last several months.

The apparent suicide of a 38-year-old Japanese venture capitalist has added a sinister aura to the investigation into the dealings of Takafumi Horie, the brash Internet entrepreneur at the center of a drama that has roiled stock markets. The body of Hideaki Naguchi, a former executive with Horie's multibillion-dollar Livedoor Co. online media services empire, was discovered Wednesday night in a business hotel in Naha, Okinawa, 1,000 miles south of Tokyo.

Japanese government officials Thursday sharply criticized the Tokyo Stock Exchange for its inability to cope with a surge of stock sales triggered by an investigation of a popular Internet company's financial dealings. "A stock exchange that can't carry on trading simply doesn't deserve to exist," Economy Minister Kaoru Yosano said in a nationally televised news conference. "The exchange should make it a top priority to bring business back to normal."

The Tokyo Stock Exchange said Sunday that it would immediately boost trading capacity but would keep shortened trading sessions after a flood of orders forced it to curtail trading Wednesday. Meanwhile, share prices in Japan and most other major Asian markets were down more than 1% early today as last week's sell-off resumed. News that Tokyo-based Internet firm Livedoor Co.

It began as a stock trader's nightmare, an error caused by a momentary lapse in concentration perhaps, or a clumsy bit of typing that led to a $331-million loss. It has since tarnished the reputation of the world's second-biggest stock exchange and exposed cracks in its electronic trading system. The president of the Tokyo Stock Exchange has said he may resign over the fiasco.

Tracking shares in a Sony Corp. unit that operates an Internet service provider made a weak debut on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Japan's first-ever tracking stock failed to trade until the afternoon, and then closed at 2,950 yen, down 10.6% from its initial public offer price of 3,300 yen. Sony has raised about $81.40 million through the issuance of 3,072,000 tracking shares.