Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Tokyo Metropolitan Government Is Now the Largest Shareholder of TEPCO

Yomiuri Shinbun (4/11/2012) reports:

 東京電力の株主として従来第3位だった東京都が、筆頭株主になったことが分かった。

It has been revealed that the Tokyo Metropolitan government, who was the third largest shareholder of TEPCO, is now the largest shareholder.

これまで筆頭株主だった第一生命保険と2位株主だった日本生命保険がそれぞれ3月末までに東電株の一部を売却したためだ。東京都は、東電がビルや工場など大口向け電気料金を値上げしたことに反発し、6月末の株主総会で株主提案権を行使すると主張しており、東電と東京都の対立の行方が注目される。

The largest shareholder Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company and the second largest shareholder Nippon Life Insurance Company both sold part of its TEPCO holdings by the end of March [end of the fiscal 2011]. The Tokyo Metropolitan government is not happy that TEPCO has raised electricity charges for large business customers, and has said it will exercise the shareholder's right to propose in the shareholders' meeting at the end of June, adding to increasingly confrontational situation between TEPCO and the Tokyo Metropolitan government.

 昨年9月末時点では、東電の株主構成は〈1〉第一生命(3・42%)〈2〉日本生命(3・29%)〈3〉東京都(2・66%)の順だった。

At the end of September last year, the top three shareholders of TEPCO were: Dai-ichi Life Insurance (3.42%), Nippon Life Insurance (3.29%) and Tokyo Metropolitan government (2.66%).

 第一生命と日本生命は、東電の株価が著しく下落する中で、株の売却を進めた。

Dai-ichi Life and Nippon Life proceeded to sell the shares as the share price of TEPCO significantly dropped.

 東京都は、猪瀬直樹副知事が大口向け料金値上げに反発し、東電に徹底したコスト削減を求めている。猪瀬氏は3月の都議会で「株主提案権を行使して、株主総会の場で東京都の意見、提案を表明していく」と述べた。

Within the Tokyo Metropolitan government, Vice Governor Naoki Inose is particularly displeased with the rate hike for big businesses, and is demanding further cost cut from TEPCO. Mr. Inose said during the March Assembly, "We will exercise the shareholder's right to suggest, and express the opinion and make suggestions as the Tokyo Metropolitan government in the shareholders' meeting."

Well, confrontation goes only so far, I'm afraid. As the readers of this blog know, the Iwate disaster debris burning project of Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara benefits TEPCO's subsidiary Tokyo Rinkai Recycle Power Company as it has been "selected" as the only company able to burn the flammable debris in a quantity specified in the bidding document (100 tonnes/day minimum).

Tokyo burns Iwate's debris which is less contaminated than Miyagi's at a dedicated industrial waste incinerator at the TEPCO subsidiary, and burns more contaminated Miyagi's debris at incineration plants that usually only burn household garbage and are situated in the middle of the residential areas. Make sense, doesn't it?

For this government to criticize TEPCO is like "the pot calling kettle black" to say it in English; to say it in Japanese, in literal translation, "eye mucus laughing at snot".

The Tokyo Metropolitan government is also said to be loaded with TEPCO's corporate bonds. The bonds issued by power companies are the debt secured by the company assets. TEPCO has 5 trillion yen (US$62 billion) in debt outstanding. A tiny drop in a bucket, though, compared to what the Japanese national government owes (depending on the statistics, anything from 600 trillion yen just counting the long-dated national bonds to over 1,000 trillion (or 1 quadrillion) yen counting in the debt by prefectures and municipalities, short-dated notes and debt secured by the government).

8 comments:

Peter said...

Thank you for great postingFiat For Sale

Anonymous said...

looks like japans holding the bag.
these things can cause financial armageddon u know

Anonymous said...

As the Yakuza, local, provincial, and federal interest groups pocket themselves with Tax payers revenues: the people of Japan will be burdened by the public debt . Japan is fortunate to be an exporting country of high end value goods. However, the bully sooner or later has to pay up. The people suffering from TOHOKU, the working poor making 1000 JPY/per hour are the lamb to the slaughter. Capitalism is doing well in Japan.

Anonymous said...

Uh... what capitalism? Japan is the most successful Soviet Union on the planet.

CaptD said...

What a Nuclear Waste!


TEPCO is NOW Putting Life on Earth at RISK...

If the SFP (Spent Fuel Pool) in #4 collapses or fails to be kept cool FOR ANY REASON, in a very short time, all the fuel rods in it will destroy themselves by becoming a huge molten mass. This new radioactive mass will make the ENTIRE Fukushima complex (including reactors #5 and #6 (and their SFP's) into not only the Worlds biggest nuclear disaster but it will be so radioactive that the entire complex will be off limits to humans! This new uncontrollable molten mass will spew so much radioactivity (and keep doing so for the rest of our lives) that it will change life as we know it, because it will be spread Globally by the jet stream and or Ocean currents.

BTW: If you have not seen the 1959 movie "On the Beach" you should, it describes a very similar situation...


TEPCO MUST DO 3 THINGS ASAP TO PREVENT THIS:

1. TEPCO should be filling the entire #4 building with concrete ASAP in order to create a "Seismic Vessel" to completely encapsulate the SFP making it impossible for it to collapse, because the new "Seismic Vessel" would be one gigantic unit...

2. TEPCO should have no less than 4 backup generators and 4 pumps that EACH could provide ENOUGH emergency power and water should ANYTHING happen to prevent the normal pumps from functioning. Note this includes protecting all the fuel, storage tanks, piping and controls so that it would make these pumps and their generators completely BOMB PROOF so nothing could prevent them from functioning 24/7/365 and then TEST ONE UNIT EVERY DAY UNDER ACTUAL LOAD, so that the on site workers become expert at shifting pumps!

3. TEPCO should build and then fill enough tanks to provide standby cooling freshwater for at least one week, so that no matter what happens, the #4 SFP will be kept cool without using seawater, (which could serve as another backup source of water) if the freshwater proved to not be enough for some unknown reason!

CaptD said...

I wonder if any of these New Leaders asked on or off the record, what happened to all the highly radioactive materials that are now missing from Fukushima and what they are doing to recover them ASAP. If it is true that that TEPCO is using GANG supplied labor then it must be worrisome that all this highly radioactive material may have been stolen and or sold to terrorist organizations because of it's dirty weapon potential for BIG money! I hope some future terrorist dirty explosion does not contain Fukushima radioactive debris, as it will give "Made in Japan" a new meaning!

+
Key issues **not mentioned** in MSM coverage:
1. Nuclear security is NOT getting FALLOUT from Fukushima...
2. Where has all the highly radioactive material "gone" that was in Fukushima.
3. Leaders DO NOT think Nature can destroy any land based nuclear reactor,
.... any place anytime 24/7/365!
4. Nuclear should be REDUCED not increased Worldwide.
5. The **NEGATIVE** Health effects of Low levels of radiation.

Anonymous said...

Yes, it makes a farce of all those security meetings and reports on spent fuel and terrorism.

One bonus though, they can't do as much damage as we are doing to ourselves.

CaptD said...

The question we all need to ask is:

WHO IS IN CHARGE OF TEPCO?

THEIR NAME(s) should be on every BLOG World-Wide...

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