Japan’s April Property Loan Defaults at Record, Moody’s Says

Defaults on debt backed by Japanese office buildings, shopping centers and warehouses rose to a record in April due to a single loan of more than 100 billion yen ($1.24 billion), according to Moody’s Investors Service.

Bad loans rated by Moody’s last month rose to about 147 billion yen from 26.9 billion yen a year earlier, said Koji Kumamaru, managing director, and Takahiro Okubo, a senior analyst, at Moody’s in Tokyo. The monthly default balance was the biggest since the rating company started assessing commercial mortgage backed securities in 1999, they said.