The Development Bank of Japan’s (DBJ) fiscal-year 2005 results and the fiscal-year 2006 earnings outlook generally indicate that it is maintaining a favorable financial profile and steady progress has begun toward privatization, in our view. We expect fiscal-year 2005 results and the fiscal-year 2006 earnings outlook to have almost no impact on DBJ’s credit ratings and spreads.
DBJ is scheduled to become a special status company (tokushu gaisha) in October 2008 and be governed under the Banking Law upon full privatization. DBJ is searching for an optimal post-privatization business model, utilizing its past characteristics of flexibility to provide various financial techniques suited to the policy needs of the times.
The detailed design of the public finance reform announced in late June implied that DBJ’s credit was unlikely to be damaged, at least until the transition period. Work on public finance reform bills will begin in earnest in the near future, but we do not expect related headlines to provide any major surprises. I believe DBJ’s credit spreads will remain stable for the foreseeable future from a fundamentals perspective.